Second-hand Market Research Articles

Public procurement of electric vehicles as a way to support a market: examples from Sweden

Electric vehicles (EVs) are increasingly seen as a desirable sustainable solution for the transport sector, and public procurement is often highlighted as one tool to stimulate a market. In this paper, we analyse the role of Swedish municipalities in relation to public procurement and especially whether and in such cases how municipalities in Sweden use public procurement as an instrument to enhance a market for EVs. The strategy in both municipalities was to let the municipal organisations act as role models, create buying power and develop a second-hand market for EVs. The strategy to speed up diffusion within the municipal organisation was through information and test-driving and in dialogue with the administration solve problems that arise. A potential improvement of the diffusion process would be to find ways to share the extra cost of an EV.

A buyer-seller watermarking protocol for digital secondary market

In the digital right management value chain, digital watermarking technology plays a very important role in digital product’s security, especially on its usage tracking and copyrights infringement authentication. However, watermark procedures can only effectively support copyright protection processes if they are applied as part of an appropriate watermark protocol. In this regard, a number of watermark protocols have been proposed in the literature and have been shown to facilitate the use of digital watermarking technology as copyright protection. One example of such protocols is the anonymous buyer-seller watermarking protocol. Although there are a number of protocols that have been proposed in the literature and provide suitable solutions, they are mainly designed as a watermarking protocol for the first-hand market and are unsuitable for second-hand transactions. As the complexity of online transaction increases, so does the size of the digital second-hand market. In this paper, we present a new buyer-seller watermark protocol that addresses the needs of customer’s rights problem in the digital secondary market. The proposed protocol consists of five sub-protocols that cover the registration process, watermarking process for the first, second and third-hand transactions as well as the identification & arbitration processes. This paper provides analysis that compares the proposed protocols with existing state-of-the-arts and shows that it has met not only all the buyer’s and seller’s requirements in the traditional sense but also accommodates the same requirements in the secondary market.

Banca privada y vivienda usada en la ciudad de Madrid

El número de viviendas usadas en poder de los bancos ha aumentado de forma notable en los últimos diez años como consecuencia de la crisis económica e hipotecaria. El considerable incremento del paquete de activos tóxicos inmobiliarios (más del 36% entre el año 2012 y 2015) procede, en buena medida, de los impagos a la banca por parte de las familias. La ciudad de Madrid es una de las poblaciones más afectadas por este fenómeno, en la que se acumulan los desahucios día tras día. El presente estudio cuantifica y analiza, a través de la información que facilitan las inmobiliarias de las cinco principales entidades bancarias del país, esta bolsa de viviendas de segunda mano en la capital española. La localización de las mismas dentro del núcleo urbano permite conocer el grado de afectación por distritos. Por otro lado, nos hemos servido de la base de datos socioeconómicos de la Administración Local para determinar la incidencia social del posicionamiento de la banca privada. El análisis espacial a través de Sistemas de Información Geográfica ha revelado comportamientos anómalos de la banca en relación al mercado de compra-venta de viviendas usadas en la ciudad de Madrid.

Simultaneous reassembly and procurement planning in assemble-to-order remanufacturing systems

Assemble-to-Order (ATO) remanufacturing systems deal with decision-making on the number and type of modules ready for reassembly, while managing a high degree of uncertainty in the quantity of incoming end-of-life products. Remanufacturers who adopt the waste stream system often passively accept an unpredictable amount of collected supply in their systems. Also, they often keep various items in their inventory for future reassembly purposes despite the parts depreciation which leverages part values in the second-hand market. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a graph-based optimization model for simultaneous reassembly and procurement planning with the aim of determining the type and number of parts that should be reassembled and procured, considering the market demand for both cores and subassemblies. This study articulates the problem employing a network flow graph and integer linear programming (ILP). In addition, the study suggests two key concepts: (1) disposal point, and (2) reassembly threshold. Considering recycling benefits and holding costs, the disposal point helps remanufacturers make proper decisions on the time that they have to dispose of parts that are stored in their inventory. The reassembly threshold makes remanufacturers recognize a tipping point for reassembly process cost where they have to keep parts rather than reassemble them. The application of the proposed method is illustrated using a smartphone example.

중고시장의 고객만족경영: 셀잇(Sell-it) 사례를 중심으로

중고시장의 고객만족경영: 셀잇(Sell-it) 사례를 중심으로

Scenario of future e-waste generation and recycle-reuse-landfill-based disposal pattern in India: a system dynamics approach

The fundamental requirements of the e-waste management system are the forecasting of the future generation of e-waste and in situ planning to minimize the risk. The prediction analysis (a simulation exercise with base year 2012 and end year 2025) for several e-waste items (desktop, notebook, refrigerator, television and washing machine) reflects an increasing waste generation pattern. The present study deals with the prediction of e-waste generation and the percentage distribution of e-waste through different disposal pathways (landfill, second-hand market and recycling) based on the system dynamics approach (using STELLA software, version 8.0) for the purpose of improved management practice in near future in India. During the prediction of disposal options, the role, importance and functionality of various pathways are also critically analyzed. The simulation results indicate that the specific route of e-waste disposal will largely control the e-waste generation in India as informal sectors, in future, will solely utilize recycle and reuse pathways due to the economics of the specific components of the generated e-waste. On the other hand, the percentage of landfillable e-waste will decrease from 8.06 to 6.54 % within a decade (2012–2025). Finally, the study emphasizes on delineation of a well-composed guideline for policy orientation to protect the human health and environment, as e-waste items and their various components often emit toxic substances particularly during informal trade chain practices.

Transportation Science Special Issue on Freight Transportation and Logistics, Part I

F transportation and logistics systems and activities are the lifeblood of human society and modern economies. The goal and challenge of the organizations setting up and operating these complex systems is to simultaneously achieve the highest levels of operation efficiency, customer satisfaction, economic profitability, and market competitiveness. This is increasingly compounded by the social challenge of reducing the energy consumption, environmental footprint, and, particularly in cities, the impact of transportation and logistics operations on congestion and the quality of life of the people. An intense, rich and ever growing operations research and transportation science research field is answering these challenges, yielding contributions of significant scientific and practical importance. The series of ODYSSEUS International Workshops on Freight Transportation and Logistics has emerged as one of the foremost scientific forums for this research field. The fifth workshop, which took place in May 2012 in Mykonos, Greece, ignited the interest to call upon the scientific community for a special issue of Transportation Science on the topic. The call has been answered enthusiastically. Following a thorough refereeing process, we selected a first group of 11 papers making up this issue. A second group will appear later this year. The selected papers present original, cutting-edge contributions illustrating, through methodological developments and innovative, insight-provoking applications, the diversity and richness of problems encountered in the modeling, planning, and management of freight transportation and logistics systems. A number of trends are noticeable, in particular, proposing integrated models that provide the means to address simultaneously issues traditionally associated to different levels of planning; increasing the level of modeling detail of system components and operations within network-wide problem formulations; explicitly considering the uncertainty inherent in most decision-making and operational processes and exploring methods to efficiently address the resulting formulations; and proposing new system and service designs, particularly for operations within cities. Algorithmic developments enrich the selected papers, proving efficient means to address the particular problems at hand, as well as stimulating insights for further work. Exact and meta-heuristic solution principles are to be found, of course, but the trend of successfully mixing the two is also strongly noticeable. The first group of three papers addresses various issues related to the planning of operations and the management of the fleet of intercity freight carriers. The first paper in the group by Bouzaiene-Ayari, Cheng, Das, Fiorillo, and Powell addresses the locomotive-optimization problem for railroads. The authors present, using a unified notation, a series of models capturing different levels of detail and complexity in operations and in the attributes and status of locomotives. The most realistic formulations involve multiple commodities and attributes and represent the impact of several main sources of uncertainty. This portfolio of integerprogramming models, two of which are in production at a major U.S. railroad, aims to address the problem at strategic and tactical-operational levels. A well-known mixed-integer commercial solver and an adaptive dynamic programming algorithm are used, their comparison on real instances offering insightful conclusions on addressing large, multiattribute, time-dependent, stochastic fleet management problems. The paper has won the 2015 Best Paper Award of the Transportation Science & Logistics Society of INFORMS. The second paper, by Pantuso, Fagerholt, and Wallace, addresses the strategic fleet renewal problem within the context of maritime transportation. The objective is “simple,” satisfy demand at minimum cost, but the problem is complex as decisions involve not only the number and type of vessels to add to the fleet or dispose of over time but also how the additions and disposals should be performed, e.g., should the firm buy new vessels, or buy on the second-hand market, or should it lease? Decisions must be taken under uncertainty

Factors affecting fashion consumers’ purchase decisions in nonprofit thrift stores

With the increasing popularity of nonprofit thrift shopping, new marketing strategies are needed to respond to accelerated competition in the secondhand market. To help guide the development of marketing strategies for nonprofit thrift stores, this study aims to identify factors impacting consumers` buying behavior for secondhand fashion items sold in nonprofit thrift stores. Specifically, this study investigated 1) the effects of secondhand fashion selection criteria (i.e., design, brand name, lower price) and personal factors (i.e., gender, household income, beliefs about environment) on the secondhand fashion consumption experience in nonprofit thrift stores and 2) the moderating effects of point of purchase (POP) messages (i.e., 50% Off Sale, New Arrivals, Helping Others) on the relationships between purchase intention and impulsive buying in nonprofit thrift stores. An online survey was used to collect the data, and a total of 197 usable responses were received. The results showed that 1) gender, household income, beliefs about environment, and brand name affected the secondhand fashion consumption experience and 2) the POP message Helping Others negatively moderated the relationship between purchase intention and impulsive buying in nonprofit thrift stores. These results can help nonprofit thrift stores` managers to develop effective marketing strategies to increase their profits, which can be used to accomplish their mission of addressing social issues.

Global business and emerging economies: Towards a new perspective on the effects of e-waste

Although there has been a growing body of research on the detrimental effects of electronic waste (e-waste) in emerging economies, this fails to capture a complete picture of the subject. The purpose of this paper is to address this deficit in our understanding by developing a unified perspective of the effects of e-waste. The paper advances three main perspectives (i.e. the positive, detrimental and the unified perspectives) of the effects of e-waste in emerging economies. These perspectives unify the existing scattered streams of research on the subject to offer more robust explanations of the effects of e-waste in developing countries. Through an illustrative case of an emerging economy, the paper demonstrates that contrary to the perceived view that e-waste from advanced economies to developing countries is detrimental; some sectors such as the second-hand market, aftermarket and repair industry have flourished. The paper outlines a range of strategies for countries that can be adopted to develop and enhance environmental sustainability.

再生を考えているマンションの流通価格にかかる課題

再生を考えているマンションの流通価格にかかる課題

The stability and profitability of the informal WEEE collector in developing countries: A case study of China

Different attitudes and practices toward WEEE recovery and recycling are found in developed and developing countries. As the largest developing country in the world, China's WEEE is widely regarded as a valuable product, and the resources contained in it offer potential profit for informal collectors. Unlike the formal collectors, who are supported by the government, informal collectors can only rely on themselves. However, formal and informal collectors often comfortably coexist in developing countries and there are even cases of informal collectors dominating the market. Obsolete television (OTV) in Beijing is employed as a case study. Questionnaire survey and multi-agent cost-benefit analysis are used to analyze the stability and profitability of the informal collector. The results show the following: (1) The factors of price, convenience and canonicity can affect consumers’ motivations when selecting a collector, with price and convenience having the strongest impact. And informal collectors can better meet consumers’ demands. (2) Stable cooperation within tier two collectors is formed by profit-driven individuals. The secondhand market can expand the profits of the first-tier collectors, while the remaining OTV, which cannot be reused, is delivered to the middleman, ensuring that the first-tier collectors are not menaced from the “rear”. (3) The informal backyard recycler expands the profit of the middleman. Meanwhile, the WEEE processing fund is mostly shared by collectors and intensifies the confusion of the recovery market. We then create a new fund system to improve the regulation of OTV recovery. To make formal collections work, we suggest that the government charges an extra 40 Yuan fund when consumers buy new TVs and distribute it to formal collectors in order to exclude the informal collectors.

Assessing the role of informal sector in WEEE management systems: A System Dynamics approach

Generally being ignored by academia and regulators, the informal sector plays important roles in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management systems, especially in developing countries. This study aims: (1) to capture and model the variety of informal operations in WEEE management systems, (2) to capture the dynamics existing within the informal sector, and (3) to assess the role of the informal sector as the key player in the WEEE management systems, influencing both its future operations and its counterpart, the formal sector. By using System Dynamics as the methodology and India as the reference system, this study is able to explain the reasons behind, on the one hand, the superiority of the informal sector in WEEE management systems and, on the other hand, the failure of the formal systems. Additionally, this study reveals the important role of the second-hand market as the determinant of the rise and fall of the informal sector in the future.

The second-hand market: the practice of reusing goods in cultures dominated by the new

This article offers a literary review with the intention of analysing the studies conducted on the topic of used goods. The need for reviewing the existing considerations and research on the subject lies in the necessity to examine this topic in an organic manner, since so far it has only been examined by social sciences and particularly by the sociology of consumption in a marginal fashion. The research presented thus far ranges from studies concerning the field of cultural geography to those about economics and marketing focusing on reasons for purchase and the geography of purchases. Used goods have also been the topic of cultural anthropology studies, which focus on the subject of consumption by contemporary societies in a variety of cultural contexts, and which have examined the different contexts, systems and rituals associated with this specific exchange practice. One specific element that emerged from anthropology studies on fashion is the vintage phenomenon, which has elevated used goods in this realm. The analysis of this research suggests that the study on used goods should be carried out from a material culture perspective, so that the human relationships mediated by (used) goods can be taken into account.

Charity Shops and the Imagined Futures of Objects: How Second-Hand Markets Influence Disposal Decisions when Emptying a Parent’s House

This article explores the processes whereby things are donated, or not donated, to charity shops. I draw on in-depth interviews conducted with adults who have sorted through the houses of older family members who have moved into residential accommodation, and in some cases subsequently died. The affective qualities of objects and the informants’ responsibilities to be ‘good’ family members by ensuring ‘safe passage’ for their parents’ possessions worked to ensure that many objects did not enter the second hand market, but were preserved within the family or wider social networks. Competing instincts to be ‘responsible consumers’ by not keeping things unnecessarily, worked to ‘move things along’ into charity shops, where informants believed the objects could come to be valued and singularised by other people. By providing an imagined future where goods can continue to be useful and have the opportunity to extend their biographical life, I argue that charity shops and other second-hand markets can help people to dispose of objects which they do not want to keep, but which they find difficult to throw away.

Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets

From having been associated with poverty and low status, the commerce with second-hand goods in retro shops, flea markets, vintage boutiques and trade via Internet is expanding in Sweden as in many countries in the Global North. This article argues that a significant aspect of the recent interest in second-hand and reuse concerns the meaning fulness of circulation in social life. Using classic anthropological theory on how the circulation of material culture generates sociality, it focuses on how second-hand things are transformed by their circulation. Rather than merely having cultural biographies, second-hand things are reconfigured through their shifts between different social contexts in a process that here is understood as a form of growing. Similar to that of an organism, this growth is continuous, irreversible and dependent on forces both internal and external to it. What emerges is a category of things that combine elements of both commodities and gifts, as these have been theorized within anthropology. While first cycle commodities are purified of their sociality, the hybrid second-hand thing derives its ontological status as well as social and commercial value precisely from retaining ‘gift qualities’, produced by its circulation.

Analysis of structural changes in container shipping

A number of studies have investigated the dynamics of shipping markets because of their volatility, unpredictability and risk. However, most of them have focused on bulk and tanker markets because the container market is relatively new and long-run correlation is not identified using general cointegration methods. This article tries to analyze the dynamic interrelationship among newbuilding prices, time charter rates and second-hand ship prices in the container market. Our methodology consists of the Johansen’s Vector Autocorrelation Model to test the existence of long-run relationships and it purports to show that the failure of the cointegration test is caused by the existence of structural changes in the relationship among these variables. After recognizing the newbuilding price as dependent variable by the use of the causality test, we identify the number of structural breaks and the specific coefficients in each regime for the overall and each sub-market, using Bai–Perron’s multiple structural changes test. The result confirms the existence of structural changes in the correlation among ship prices and freight rates. It also suggests that in a decreasing market, the newbuilding price is more active than the time charter rate and the second-hand price. In an increasing market instead, the time charter rate is more active; and in a matured stable situation, the second-hand market is more flourishing.

Shipping market integration: The case of sticky newbuilding prices

In this article we derive an equation defining contemporaneous equilibrium prices across the four shipping markets: the newbuilding market, the second-hand market, the demolition market and the freight market. The model requires rather general conditions, namely that (i) all second-hand ships are priced based on linear depreciation down to scrap value, (ii) expectations of the future scrap value and lifespan of the vessel are equal to current values and (iii) the term structure of (time charter) freight rates is observable. In the empirical part of the article we use this equilibrium relationship to illustrate the presence of a ‘term structure of newbuilding prices’ and show that the lower volatility of newbuilding prices compared with second-hand values is a result of a time-varying delivery lag, which is positively correlated with the alternative cost of operating in the freight market. These observations are important for statistical analysis of the dynamics of ship values.

A second-hand market for digital goods?

Surprisingly little research has focused so far on the emergence of second-hand markets for the large and somewhat fuzzy class of objects usually labelled as “digital goods”, even though it is a niche that has recently attracted both considerable investments and considerable legal controversy. This article, offering far more questions than answers, argues why it is an interesting and complex research topic for interdisciplinary scholars of technology and society — and attempts to sketch in broad strokes the complex nexus of stakeholder interests, economic dynamics, judicial pressures, social factors and technological elements lying at its core.

Monopoly production and pricing of finitely durable goods with strategic consumers׳ fluctuating willingness to pay

Demand volatility and production lead time oblige manufacturers of made-to-stock goods to use economic forecasts in deciding on production quantities. Manufacturers of finitely durable goods face an additional complication—in making production decisions, they must consider not only the uncertainty in demand for new goods, but also how the future sales will be affected by the older goods that will become available via a secondhand market. Using a model of an infinite-horizon sequential game between a monopolistic producer of durable goods and strategic consumers, we investigate how demand volatility affects producers’ production and pricing decisions. We formulate the problem of a monopolist durable goods producer as a discrete-time Markov Decision Process and prove certain structural properties of the sales and production policy. These structural properties facilitate an efficient computational algorithm, which we use in running numerical experiments to explicate the producer׳s strategy and to conduct equilibrium comparative statics analysis. We show that a simple myopic policy is optimal when each period׳s demand is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). When demand is correlated across periods, the producer׳s optimal production and sales policy is not myopic, and in some states, when the economy is poor, the producer withholds some of the new goods inventory. Our numerical results suggest that in equilibrium, the producer who is dealing with myopic rather than with forward-looking consumers is more likely to sell some of these held-back goods later, as vintage goods.

Buying frenzies in durable-goods markets

We explain why a durable-goods monopolist would like to create a shortage during the launch phase of a new product. We argue that this incentive arises from the presence of a second-hand market and uncertainty about consumers׳ willingness to pay for the good. Consumers are heterogeneous and initially uninformed about their valuations but learn about them over time. Given demand uncertainty, first period sales may result in misallocation and lead to active trading on the secondary market after the uncertainty is resolved. Trading on the second-hand market will generate additional surplus. This surplus can be captured by the monopolist ex-ante because consumers are forward-looking, and the price they are willing to pay incorporates the product׳s resale value. As a consequence, when selling to uninformed consumers, the monopolist faces the trade-off between more sales today and a lower profit margin. Specifically, because the product׳s resale value is negatively related to the stock of the good in the second-hand market, selling more units today will result in a lower equilibrium price of the product. Therefore, the monopolist may find it optimal to create a shortage and ration consumers to the second period. We characterize conditions under which the monopolist would like to restrict sales and generate buying frenzies.