yardsale: Final Report

Kshitij Kapoor, Ishika Ray.

Abstract

One of the greatest problems in the resale of second-hand products is the issue of trust –

buyers aren’t comfortable buying second-hand products (whether used or otherwise) from

strangers on the internet. This project aims to use an online platform to introduce potential

buyers to sellers in a hyperlocal community, where buyers can view the sellers’ products and

can contact them offline.

Introduction to problem

The idea for a second-hand product-vending website is not a new one. However, our

team decided to approach the idea from the perspective of closed communities. We took up

the case of Ashoka University, a fully-equipped modern college campus situated next to a

national highway and surrounded by a largely rural population. Although the campus is about

10 minutes from the town of Sonepat, and about an hour away from Delhi, its immediate

neighbours are not easily accessible to the residents of the campus. As a result, the members

of the Ashoka community must depend on each other for any second-hand purchase.

However, word-of-mouth is often an ineffective method to seek out a potential buyer, seller,

or product. Our website, called ‘yardsale’, aims to bridge the gap between such users. As a

result, our website acts both as a directory for buyers to browse products, and as a platform

for sellers to list their items in the most concise, yet appealing way possible.

Prototyping efforts

The first step in our project was to create a prototype of the Ashoka Shuttle app.

Through the ideation and creation of the prototype, we discovered the importance of clean,
minimalistic design that can simultaneously achieve aesthetic excellence and iterative

efficacy.

User understanding

In order to understand our user base, our team used two methods: (i) a user survey and

(ii) contextual enquiry in the form of a physical yard sale.

Survey:

We chose the population of the Ashoka community (students, faculty and

administration) as our target sample (as a closed community) for the survey. The survey was

aimed at understanding users' past buying experience with second-hand products. If there was

no history of second-hand purchases, we tried to understand the reason why they had never

done so.

Out of the 60 responses, 56.7% (34 responders) had previously bought a second-hand

product. Out of the 34, 5 responders had used an online portal; while the others bought the

product in person. About 10% reported buying second-hand books. No responder has ever

returned a second-hand product. 2 responders also mentioned that they did not expect a

second-hand buy to last very long, so they were satisfied even if the product lasted for 6-8

months.

Contextual Enquiry:

We observed buyer and seller behaviour by conducting a yard sale at the Ashoka

campus. The sale was aimed at understanding buyers while they interact with sellers, as well

as their reaction to the second-hand products. We started publicising the yard sale on

Wednesday, 7th Oct 2015. The actual yard sale was conducted on Friday, 9th Oct 2015. The

duration of the yard sale was 5 hours (12:00 pm to 5:00 pm). Customers could view each
seller’s product & price list, which was displayed alongside the products. If customers wished

to bargain, they could write down their ‘haggle’ price along with their name/number, next to

the product on the list. We also noted whether customers struck private deals with the sellers,

and whether they paid on the spot or paid later.

Some of the most pertinent observations made during the yard sale were:

Ø Most people were interested in buying non-essential products such as mobile phone

covers, posters, badges and paintings (the paintings were the sellers’ own artwork).

Second-hand books were also a popular choice. The highest-selling products were the

pop-culture wall posters.

Ø Sellers, although initially scarce, increased in number after: (i) observing that

customers were browsing through other sellers’ products, (ii) noticing products at the

stalls that they too owned, and could sell.

Ø Most of our sellers were customers who later brought their products to the sale.

Ø Most buyers were wary of bargaining, despite our non-intrusive and simple

bargaining method. In fact, customers were more averse to jotting their bargain price

than they were to giving out their phone numbers—this observation is important to us

in terms of closed community behaviour.

Related work (and their limitations or differences):

Our website’s goal is similar to that of OLX.com or Quikr.com – both of these

websites cater to the second-hand market. The major difference between yardsale and these

websites is that we plan to cater to closed communities, in order to maintain the direct

accountability of the seller. While our aim to be a facilitator is identical to that of either OLX

or Quikr, we plan to only allow buyers or sellers to interact with others who reside in the

locality, or community as them.

 Further, studying OLX.com has help us come up with what not to do and how

to help our sellers. For example, we plan to limit our dealing to consumer-to-consumer

dealings, concentrate on the quality of ads, not just the quality of products (a move that has

helped OLX’s greatest competitor, Quikr, achieve a greater turnover per annum).

Description of final system

Our final system is a locally hosted interface simulation which we presented to 20

users to obtain feedback. The website was designed along the lines of YouTube and

Facebook—just as YouTube users have their own channels, our sellers also have their own

channels, and complete with a list of products they want to sell. The seller’s contact

information is available on their channel. Our design includes a newsfeed (much like

Facebook), which displays the names of sellers, alongside the products they are selling.

For our user survey, we actively observed the users as they navigated the website.

Moreover, we encouraged the user to vocalize any changes they would prefer in the interface

while navigating the website.

Learnings from user survey

The most pertinent feedback we received was as follows:

Ø There should be a landing page, which leads to the login page.

Ø On the ‘Register’ page, the sign-up form should ask for the user’s first and last name

before the creating a password.

Ø The jumbotron on the product page should display the product name, not the seller’s

name.

Ø After logging out, the page should redirect to the login page, not the ‘Register’ page

for new users.

 Ø There was great user appreciation for the ease with which new products can be added

to a user’s channel.

Ø 13 out of 20 users found the newsfeed to be an intuitive way to display products.

However, most of them preferred displaying products by seller in the newsfeed, rather

than being categorized by product type.

Ø One user suggested a seller rating system, so that the website can provide suggestions

to users about popular sellers.

Conclusions and future work

The next step for our project is implementing a fully-functional website for Ashoka

users. After taking the multiple suggestions into account, we plan to make a few significant

changes to the website. Firstly, we plan to add a star system for rating sellers. Secondly, we

plan to create a product type-based filter system (much like Flipkart), but we also plan to

retain our channel-based system—in order to test out which categorization method is more

preferred by the larger user pool. Finally, we plan to create a more formal landing page, and

redesign the login and registration pages in order to make them more intuitive to use.