【Speaker】Youhua Chen, Professor, City University of Hong Kong

【Topic】Supporting Customers to Sell Used Goods thru P2P: Profitability and Environmental Implications

【Time】Friday, Dec.30, 10:00-12:00

【Venue】Room 453, Weilun Building, Tsinghua SEM

【Language】English/Chinese

【Organizer】Department of Management Science and Engineering

【Abstract】

Several brand name companies have launched online peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms to support their customers to post, sell and buy their used goods. These P2P platforms serve as redistribution/secondhand markets where used or pre-owned goods are passed on from someone who does not want them to someone who does want them. This is another alternative to the more common “reduce, reuse, recycle, repair" methods of dealing with waste. For this reason, these firms typically publicize their campaigns as “Go Green" programs. However, as commonly perceived, secondhand markets would cannibalize the sales of a firm’s new products and thus compromises its financials. Hence, we aim to address two research questions here: will actions of supporting customers to sell used goods through secondhand markets 1) enhance firm profits and/or 2) be greener than not supporting? If a firm can benefit from more active secondhand trading, then a “Go Green” program will most likely lead to financial sustainability and hence the firm’s long-term voluntary commitment to such effort. We find that whether encouraging secondhand trading is greener and/or more profitable depends largely on the product’s relative values of reuse and newness (for used goods and new products, respectively), the relative environmental impact of the product in its use phase as compared to the production and disposal phases. This work is collaborated with XUE Yu and YU Yugang.

CV