Cecilien-Gymnasium Düsseldorf (2018)

Second Place of the YES! 2018

“Transactions via the Internet – How Can Trust be Built?”

The main problem, which results in the lack of trust, is „asymmetrical information“. This means that one party might know more about a product (retailer), than the other party (buyer).

We believe that the root of the problem can be found in feedback systems. According to a study from the Hong Kong University, 80% of the customers who plan to buy a product online, consult reviews. Thus our idea focuses on increasing the motivation for reviewing and ensure that the feedback is constructive and trustworthy.

Our solution, “1Feedback”, is an interactive and transparent multi-platform feedback system, which reviews sellers. Online retailers can outsource their feedback system and utilise “1Feedback” as a plug-in on their respective platforms. The users are able to write reviews, but they are also able to up- and downvote reviews and also comment on them. As a security mechanism, users can only access the pages of sellers, from which they already ordered products in the past.

A point system will reward a user depending on the up/downvote balance (=upvotes minus downvotes) and the number of times he reviewed or gave up/downvotes. After a certain threshold, the user rises up, and his profile will be certified as a “Level 2-profile”. If the user continues to advance, he will receive at a certain level a financial reward, for example, discounts, money and etc. Another element of gamification are badges, which a user can get for fulfilling special “quests”.

Our concept has many advantages. “1Feedback” can be implemented with ease and is cost-efficient for online retailers, as it creates synergy effects. But most importantly, the feedback rate will rise, and the reviews will become trustworthy, as the users of “1Feedback’ aspire to get rewards and thus to receive as many upvotes as possible. Effectively, the information gap between buyer and seller shrinks and the Internet will be trustful and a fair place for trading.

Sources/Literature

“The Market for Lemons”, George A. Akerlof, 1970, Berkeley

“What drives consumers to spread electronic word of mouth in online consumer-opinion platforms”, Christy M.K. Cheung, Matthew K.O. Lee, 2012, Hong Kong

https://www.provenexpert.com/de-de/blog/die-bewertungsquote-zahlen-und-fakten-zu-einem-mysterium-des-e-commerce/ , accessed: 17.07.2018

Photo: (c) YES! / Kai Meinke

The team selected this topic

Transactions via the Internet – How Can Trust be Built? (2018)

For transactions to take place, the market players involved must have a minimum degree of confidence in the respective exchange partner. Only if someone is confident that he or she will receive the desired product or service in a satisfactory quality they will agree to the transaction. That is not to be taken for granted! There are many situations in which one side of the market has more information than the other. A well-known example from the economic literature is a second-hand car market, where buyers cannot identify a car’s quality easily. In the course of digital transformation, this problem seems to be aggravated: Buyers and sellers often remain anonymous. In most cases, there is at least no personal contact that could help building trust. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the solutions that have emerged in the digital world: What do they look like and how well do they work? What other solutions are imaginable?

The Team

This is the introduction of the YES! 2018 team of the Cecilien-Gymnasium Düsseldorf.
Our topic is online transactions and how trust can be established. We look forward to
come up with an innovative solution to this question with the help of Rebekka Rehm and
Clemens Recker, researchers at iwp Institute for Economic Policy at the University of
Cologne.