Online Exchange Potential Impact - Wrap

The survey respondents were firstly asked if they had ever used any of the online exchange sites that
were being monitored for this project (eBay, Freecycle, Freegle, Gumtree, Preloved) or any other
online exchange sites. This established which of the above types of consumer they were, i.e. whether
they had an online presence or not. The survey respondents were then asked about their awareness
and frequency of use of each of the sites – i.e. whether they had heard of a site or not, and whether
they were an occasional or regular user. Next, respondents who do use online exchanges were asked
what they use them for. This question aimed to understand whether people accept, offer or request
items. This question was also designed to show whether there were some users who only buy /
accept items and some who only sell / offer items; if some people only request items (for example
through Freegle and Freecycle); and what proportion will both accept and offer items.
Table 5.1 Broad themes of the survey
Consumers with online presence Consumers with no online
presence
Use of sites Awareness of activity
Which sites know of / use Which sites
Past items offered Reason for no online presence
Past items taken Would consider using
Frequency of use What types of items
Types of items considered
The next questions aimed to understand the reasons why consumers use online exchanges, and the
reasons why they do not. Respondents were presented with a range of options that they could apply
positively or negatively to each site. Aspects that encouraged use included ease of use, personal
security, environmental benevolence and bargain hunting, considered alongside reasons that impaired
use: the site being difficult to understand, and concern about poor item quality. For future surveys it
may be beneficial to include an option to score websites rather than select predetermined reasons for
use. For example: on a scale of 1 to 5, how does a website score in terms of personal security? This
information could then be used to identify user priorities when choosing which websites to use.
To gauge the types of items that consumers are exchanging, the survey respondents were next asked
which of the priority items they have either offered, accepted or would consider exchanging online.
Finally respondents were asked what offline alternatives they would use to get rid of each of these
types of items, for example at the household waste and recycling centre, car boot sale, refuse
collection or donated elsewhere.
Over 1,253 completed responses were received, with the vast majority being returned by post (rather
than via the online portal).
5.1 Confidence intervals
From the 1,253 responses and following quality checking of the data, a total of 1,092 valid responses
were achieved. This is a reasonable sample size from which to draw generalisations about the target
population, as the 95% confidence interval for a result of 50% has a confidence interval of +/-3%.
Therefore if 50% of the sample said that they regularly use eBay, then it would be reasonable to
assume that between 47% and 53% of UK households regularly use eBay.
Standard statistical tests were carried out to explore the differences between ACORN categories.
These were T-tests carried out to 95% confidence level. The sample size for each ACORN category is
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