A Case Study — Exploring Users Concern About The Safety & Reliability On Carousell
Disclaimer
This is a collaborative case study done by me and my classmates Lawrence Tam, Phoebe Lee and Tristan kwan for a UX research topic for a famous second hand trading platform. This research was not commissioned by Carousell, it is only for educational purposes. In this research to explore this company’s service and opportunities from different aspects. ( This research was conducted on Nov- Dec 2022.)
Introduction
Carousell is a popular second hand trading platform founded by Siu Rui Quek, Marcus Tan and Lucas Ngoo in 2012 which mainly serves users across Southeast Asia. Users will be able to find almost everything ranging from clothing to apartments on this platform.
However, there is safety concern on this platform with some news being uncovered about scams on Carousell. Therefore, our research goals are how we might create a sense of security for users on online shopping systems and how to retain customers on the online trading system with trust.
Research
We have found out some news about scams on Carousell, other similar second hand products platforms that serve as the main competitors of Carousell and reviews on Apple stores.
There are five hypotheses that are derived as below:
- User will feel more secure if there is return and exchange policy
- User will consider the credibility of users by reviewing user’s profile
- User will looking out for the product proof / certificate to trust the product is real
- Users might concern about the support of customer service centre when they encounter scams during the product transaction process
- Users might doubt the reliability of product information, rating and reviews on Carousell
These five research questions will help us develop insights and problem statements about the safety challenges in the Carousell app. Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies would be used throughout the research process. We have decided to conduct surveys via Google form and interview via call as our primary research.
Desk Research
News about Carousell
There is different news that can be highlighted related to scams on Carousell which include fake accounts being created and irresponsible users can be found on this platform.
According to a news from CNA on 19 Aug 2022, there are scammers impersonating buyers on Carousell which victims would be guided to complete the transaction on third-party websites and they would only realise they have been scammed when they discover unauthorised transactions made to their bank accounts.
Irresponsible sellers can also be found in Carousell according to a news article from Dimsumdaily which the seller claimed that he was sick and admitted to the hospital resulting in a delay in shipment, but at the end, buyer could not receive the product.
User Review
According to the user review on Trustpilot and Apple store, users are most concerned about the experience of using Carousell. Those reviews could mainly be classified into four perspectives: unreliable products, incredible users, flawed transaction processes and poor customer service.
(1) Unreliable Products
(2) Incredible Users
(3) Flawed Transaction Process
(4) Poor Customer Service
User Behaviour
Low security supply or demand for the second hand are Women’s Fashion, Toy & Game, Books Stationery and Electronics in 2020 according to the The Carousell Recommerce Index 2021 Report. The report also pointed out the reason to motivate the users to use Carousell is because of the value for money to buy second hand items and environmental reasons. Most of the users do not decide or stop buying second hand because they are concerned about the quality of goods.
Competitors
For competitors, we used eBay, Amazon, Shopee and Taobao to compare with Carousell in different perspectives; sellers, buyers engagement, convenience, security and customer service. The following 3 charts can illustrate the share of Carousell how they treat their customers and their management capabilities compared with other Asian website and globe brands.
Primary Research
User Survey
We have designed a questionnaire asking the users about their experience using the Carousell app. The questionnaire was distributed to 21 people aged between 18–55 and all have experience using the app. People from various industries participated in our survey mainly in 4 types, including student, house wife or husband, media & sports, education & training, management & office. Some valuable findings were found from this quantitative research:
1. 47.6% of respondents will use Carousell once a week or more often / 2–3 times a month. And 76.2% of them use the Carousell app frequently. Can show the frequent practice and favourite for using the app.
2. When asked to rate the factors in priority when using Carousell on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being very unimportant; 5 very important), 90.5% of respondents rated 4 or above for product price and 81% of them rated 4 or above for the credibility for the seller. They are cost driven and value the trust of the seller.
3. 47.6% of respondents are willing to spend HKD100 — HKD500 in a single purchase, and none of them would like to spend more than HKD5000 on Carousell. We found that most of them do not consider buying expensive things on Carousell.
4. When asked to rate the bad experience in priority when using Carousell on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being never; 5 always), 47.6% of respondents rated 4 or above for no response from the seller or buyer. Once they encountered a bad experience, 71.4% of them pointed out that they will reduce the frequency of using the app.
5. All respondents will read the reviews for the seller or buyer as a reference to prevent the scan on Carousell.
User Interview
To deeply understand the user experience in online trading platforms, particularly on Carousell, we have conducted one-to-one interviews with 12 users of Carousell who are from different age groups, 18yrs–25yrs, 26yrs-35yrs, 36yrs-45yrs (3 people per age group).
We have applied four main selection criterias on the interviewees in order to generate diversified research findings:
- Interviewees who are above 18 years old
- Interviewees can be both male and female
- Interviewees who are/were Carousell users
- Interviewees who are living in Hong Kong
Thus, affinity mappings have been used to organise and analyse the points that interviewees mentioned in the interview. These are the following main topics and points that we have collected:
(1) Pros of purchasing second-hand products from online trading platform
According to the affinity map, many interviewees think that online shopping platforms can offer a more convenient shopping experience compared to in-store shopping as there will be more product choices, cheaper product prices and worldwide products.
(2) Cons of purchasing second-hand products from online trading platform
However, some interviewees might have doubts about shopping online because they may be more likely to encounter irresponsible sellers, acquire misleading product information and get into trouble with cyber scams.
(3) Pros of using Carousell
Interviewees considered that the interface of the Carousell App is user-friendly, as the instruction and functions are clear for both new and existing users. Also, the transaction system with an instant message room can assist the transaction in a high-efficient way. Moreover, selling various products and services is a significant advantage for users shopping on Carousell.
(4) Cons of using Carousell
However, some interviewees might have struggled with the shopping experience at Carousell before. Some of them think that the product information on Carousell is insufficient and the customer reviews are unreliable. They also doubt the credibility of the sellers, and the customer service of Carousell is poor.
(5) How can Carousell improve credibility
To improve the credibility of Carousell, some interviewees suggested that Carousell should proactively facilitate high registration standards and stricter supervision of both sellers and buyers. Thus, Carousell should reinforce its monitoring system on the customer reviews and provide different channels for users with instant support such as providing customer service centres during their purchase/ post-purchase processes.
Persona
Journey Mapping
After summarising our findings, we have three journey mappings to represent different types of users. From the journey mappings we can also conduct their pain points.
Insights
After analysis of the findings, several significant insights have been generated:
- A transparent exchange and refund system might be crucial for the transaction process to protect sellers who have purchased unsatisfied or false products.
- To ease sellers in recognising fake accounts and scams on Carousell, improved user rating / review systems might beneficially protect users from the possibility of getting unsatisfied or non-functional products.
- To enhance its credibility, Carousell might establish better policies to proactively troubleshoot those low-credible users, unreliable customer reviews and scam activities on Carousell.
- More transparent and genuine product information, rating, and review, as well as product proof and certificate, might be needed to avoid product misleading and increase product reliability on Carousell
- Different channels might be necessary for Carousell’s users to instantly contact the customer service centre during the purchase and post-purchase processes if they encounter any scams.
Conclusion
As Carousell is the number one Hong Kong 2nd hand website, millions of Hong Konger fans use it as daily activities to buy and sell their products and services.
According to our insights findings, it has five directions:
- Carousell can provide support customer service to prevent false products and money scams.
- Carousell can provide an admin service to handle customers required, or users might drop in a dark corner.
- Carousell can provide the product’s value with a particular amount of money the users spent.
- Carousell can provide a tangible protection from the possibilities of getting an unsatisfied product and not just a verbality approved.
- For the above 4 points of insight, these are the opportunities for Carousell to win the user’s trust and security.
To establish a famous Asian brand is not an easy task and being the number one website in Hong Kong cannot be finished in a day. However, destroying it can be easy in a short period.
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” by Steve Jobs
We hope Carousell can work more for these opportunities as an action plan in 2023.
For more detail about our research, please refer to follow link:
Carousell — UX Research
Thank you for reading this case study. Please feel free to leave any comments and feedback.
