Proposal Development | Main Project | Service Design
By: Nathan Li
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Ecommerce, Sustainability, Circulareconomy, Service Design

The blog has my reflection about my previous projects, study work and work experience. Moreover, I identify what I explore for my major project and the methodology I am using.

Reflection on myself and future career

“Who am I” is a classical question. I was part-time as a waiter, buyer, and architecture assistant during my previous study life. I also owned an E-commerce shop and architecture travel company for a few years. Currently, I am a self-media blogger and Service Design student. By all those experiences, I understand how Chinese restaurant works, how architecture studio works, how export-company work, how E-commerce market work and how media is vital for a business/service.

In the project “development proposal”, I choose the “business innovation” sector. Because I thought it would be more relevant for my background.

For group discussion

We talked about our own experience in the class and came with several directions for the “business innovation” sector.

business innovation in e-commerce business innovation and social responsibility business innovation and circular economy business innovation in peer-to-peer service business innovation in services business post-pandemic

Which inspired me in different directions in business innovation.

What did I learn from other people’s comments?

For other people’s comments, I found business thinking is essential in real life. I am more preferring to doing business as a service designer. To be an entrepreneur is the only option for international students to stay in the UK as a service designer. Most of my Chinese classmates are looking for what they can do in the business area.

Self-reflect

After studying service design and looking back to the business that I did two years ago, I still found some innovative elements inside architecture travel. But due to the pandemic until now, I don’t know if travel would be a good direction to explore in this time. I thought the e-commerce market would boost after the pandemic because online shopping has played an important role nowadays. I want to bring sustainability to the e-commerce market and hope there is some innovation opportunity.

Business innovation and sustainability

The topic I am more interested in is sustainability in e-commerce. As the speed of technology development is rapid, people will be less limited about geometrical and time when they are shopping online today. I have seen so many wastes as a key stakeholder inside of the e-commerce system. Millward (2016) reveals that China is the largest e-commerce market in the world by value of sales, with an estimated US$899 billion in 2016. I have been involved in boosting E-commerce in China since 2017 as a retailer in Taobao-the biggest E-commerce platform in China. Moreover, I worked in an export company as a part-time job. And I am also an international student for a long time.

When I am working in an export company, I have seen lots of cardboard waste in the shipping process. The shipping box size usually will be the same size, which will result in a tiny item using a huge box. Although some cardboard is failed to recycle as recycle will require more expenditure than buying a new one.

As a retailer in Taobao, the biggest problem boarding me is customer returning product. Returning product will go through the process logistic and reverse-logistic, producing lots of traffic and emission and the product will be performing like used condition or like new. 92% of consumers surveyed said that they would buy again if the product return process is easy, whereas 79% of consumers want free return shipping (Saleh, 2017).

As an international student, I have moved home nearly ten times in the past six years. Every time I move, I would get rid of many things still in working condition because I don’t want to pack and carry too much stuff. Moreover, shopping online is the best option for international students when they are unfamiliar with the new place.

Overall, the global market of recycling valued product from trash is heating up. To be an enterprise with a sustainable attitude is my future goal. I am looking for an opportunity in this project to bring a sustainable business model to the E-commerce market and people’s life from a service designer perspective.

Methodology

I am familiar with the double diamond, speculative design, research through design and user-centred. Speculative design is more like a future design. It solves the problem in the future. I am more willing to engage today, so I don’t think speculative design will work. Double diamond is a traditional methodology. But I guess what I focus on is market and user rather than a problem. All those methodologies, for me, is missing something, which is business innovation. I found the best methodology for me is following one from Service Design Challenge.

The first part Identify & Explore is trying to identify an existing system that currently doesn’t work to close the loop. The second part can help me have a deeper understanding or perspective of this system. To my knowledge, if part of the system didn’t work, it means a business opportunity. After I define my end-user and market, I will frame and define my final HMW question. In the meantime, I found enterprise design thinking (IBM, 2017) might help me in this stage. It focuses on the user’s need and stays essential by treating everything into a prototype. It can help me to build a more relative business model. So, this methodology can guide my business innovation problem to be a better outcome.

Annotated Bibliography

IDEO (2015). The field guide to human-centered design. Canada: IDEO.

IDEO encourage the designer to be a human-centred designer in this book. The designer should believe all problems that users might face, like poverty, gender equality, and so on. The designer should keep people’s lives and desires at the core. The human-centred design concept is used in service design and other areas like product design and social enterprises. The book is helping people to understand the process of being a human-centred designer and supported with some tools.

World Economic Forum (2020). The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem Transition Roadmaps for Public-and Private-Sector Players. [online] . Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_the_last_mile_ecosystem.pdf [Accessed 16 Jun. 2021].

The Forum talks about the last-mile delivery’s development today. Due to the city are trying to deal with the traffic jam and emission inside of the city. How last-mile delivery play a role in this whole ecosystem become a challenge. The Forum talks about the background of last-mile delivery today and has a case study about how we might tackle this challenge.

Tokar, T., Jensen, R. and Williams, B.D. (2021). A guide to the seen costs and unseen benefits of e-commerce. Business Horizons. [online] Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0007681321000021 [Accessed 21 Mar. 2021].

The paper talks about people’s shopping preference shift from traditional retail channels toward e-commerce. The negative effects of e-commerce are resulting in lots of problems. It reveals that technology innovation will bring positive impacts to the e-commerce system. And we still need to consider unseen cost, including package, traffic and resource waste.

SillanpääM. and Chaker Ncibi (2019). The circular economy : Case studies about the transition from the linear economy. London: Academic Press.

The book talks about the most comprehensive circular model, which ensures the economy’s growth and benefits from stakeholders. The book also analyses at the international level to show the opportunity of the circular economy.

Kim, N. (Lauren), Woo, H. and Ramkumar, B. (2021). The role of product history in consumer response to online second-hand clothing retail service based on circular fashion. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 60, p.102457.

The paper more focuses on the circular fashion system. It talks about the clothes that need to be designed and produced sustainably and need to circulate them for finishing their life-circle. The biggest problem is how to make people accept those second-hand clothes. 238 people are going for an online experience about this topic. By those research, this paper aims to shape the circular fashion system in the future.

Bibliography

IBM (2017). Design thinking courses and certifications — Enterprise Design Thinking. [online] Enterprise Design Thinking. Available at: https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/page/framework [Accessed 17 Jun. 2021].

Millward, S. (2016). Tech in Asia — Connecting Asia’s startup ecosystem. [online] Techinasia. Available at: https://www.techinasia.com/asia-ecommerce-spending-1-trillion-dollars-2016 [Accessed 13 Jun. 2021].

Saleh, K. (2017). E-commerce Product Return Rate — Statistics and Trends [Infographic]. [online] Invespcro.com. Available at: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/ecommerce-product-return-rate-statistics/ [Accessed 13 Jun. 2021].