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2.

Motivation
The emergence of new technologies in the consumer electronics market increases
consumer tendency to discard their old products and replace them with newer options,
contributing to the growing electronic waste (e-waste). Cell phones are one of the biggest
contributors to e-waste. In 2010, 152 million cellphones had reached their end-of-life and only
11% of them were recycled and the rest ended up in landfills. The estimated production of
cellphones for 2014 was 1.89 billion and 150.2 million of them were iPhones [1]. Rapid
technological advancement has led to decrease in the number of mobile use phase to around 3
years, which has led to an alarming increase in the production of cellphones [2]. Cellphones are
made up of hazardous metals such as Arsenic, Cadmium, Beryllium, Copper, Lead, Nickel and
Zinc [3]. These metals are carcinogenic and persistent bio-accumulative toxins. When
incinerating the cellphone parts for recycling, dioxins and furans are obtained as a byproduct.
These toxins make their way through the eco-system through water bodies, plants and air and
creating an unhealthy atmosphere for habitats [3][4]. They also contain valuable metals such as
gold, silver, and platinum. Hence recycling cellphones would reduce the need for mining of
these metals. Moreover 50-80% of the cellphones from US at their end-of-life are exported to
other developing countries polluting their land [1][5].
A systematic and sustainable End-of-Life (EoL) recovery management system should be
designed taking into account both environmental and economic outcomes. Behdad et al. [6]
developed a stochastic optimization model based on chance constrained programing to
determine the best upgrade level for a received EoL product with certain quality level with the
aim of maximizing profit. When the product reaches its EoL, consumer deciphers the available
options by analyzing the cost of return, functionality of the product, or ease of recycling the
product. Due to lack of knowledge associated with EoL options most of the product end up in
the household or in the hands of informal recyclers, who do not have suitable facilities to carry
out the recycling process.
3. Trade-in Programs
To get an understanding of the working of trade-in programs of cellphones a detailed case
study was conducted. The case study was restricted to a single OEM (Apple). The central
objective of this case study was to analyze the factors influencing the trade-in prices of the
cellphones. The structure of each program was studied meticulously. Following sections include
description of trade-in process and factors influencing trade-in price. An analysis of four key
factors affecting trade-in price has been presented in the subsequent section.

Figure 1 depicts the basic process of an online product trade-in, and the flow of
information and product between consumers and trade-in companies. Figure 2 provides detailed
steps a consumer goes through to successfully complete a trade-in process.
The first step is to select the make and model and is the same in all the programs, requiring the
brand, model and memory size to be selected. The second step involves determining cellphone
condition. The methods to determine cell phone condition vary from one program to another.
Table 1 provides details on cell phone condition parameters used by each program to determine
the trade-in price. It is interesting to note that Program B and C involve a lot of questions on the
functioning of a cell phones features and on the integrity of its design aspects to determine the
condition of the cell phone. Whereas in all other programs the classification of a cell phones
condition is made quite broad; for e.g. like new, good and acceptable in Program D and broken,
good and flawless in Program E. The criteria for a cell phone to be eligible for either of the
categories is also given separately and the user is expected to determine what condition the cell
phone is in and thus in which category. Thus in Programs B and C, the user is expected to answer
more, but simple and more conclusive questions to determine the cell phone trade-in price as
compared to other Programs.
Table 2 enlists the credit options available, if the trade-in price offer is accepted by the
customer. Programs A, B and C include a donation option as well along with the regular credit
payment options. Also, all the above programs encourage the option to recycle the cell phone if it
is not eligible to receive any trade-in credit.
All Programs except Program G provide free shipping to the customers address to ship
the product back to the company. Program G requires the device to be brought along with a copy
of the order to the campus bookstore for trade-in.

4. METHODOLOGY
A better insight on current cellphone trade-in programs are methodically analyzed in the
previous section. These programs were generalized based on the common eligibility criterion,
defining factors of the program: Cellphone Design Features and Consumer Deciding Factors.
Chief factors from consumers perspective to participate in trade-in programs are defined: tradein price, distance of the collection center/ trade-in programs, waiting period for the shipment (if
there are no trade-in programs nearby), and knowledge of the trade-in programs. Apart from all
these factors consumers are greatly motivated by social influence and advertisements. Trade-in
programs decide the eligibility criteria based on functionality of the cellphone: screen damage,
water damage, memory size, model age and power.

Figure 1- Trade-in Defining Factors

4.1 MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF CONSUMER PREFERENCE


These factors are modeled mathematically to capture their interdependency and to quantify
them. Consumers decision to participate depends on a set of conflicting criterions. For example,
a consumer must decide if getting low trade-in price from a nearby shop is better than
participating in online trade-in programs. These criterions vary among the consumers. Some
consumers are highly motivated enough to participate without considering any of these criterions.
In order to map the consumer behavior in participating trade-in programs it is vital to analyze the
factors affecting consumers decision. Due to the existence of more than two attributes optimal
solution cannot be deduced, hence a need to model a complex system arises. Evaluation of these
set of criterions is necessary for consumers to decide their participation in trade-in programs.
MCDM and preference ranking review here.
Step 1: Defining Criterions
In this context, we assume that consumer is the Decision Maker (DM) as he/she decides
their participation in trade-in programs. The four criterions to be considered for our study are
Trade-in price, Distance, Shipping and Awareness. These criterions might be conflicting for
consumers while decision making, hence relative importance of these criterions are evaluated.

Criterion levels are categorized as follows: Lowest ranked, Medium Ranked and Highest
ranked, this is done in order to rank the preferred criterions. Consumer preference criterion
and their respective levels are defined in Table-1.
Literature review of factors motivating consumers
Trade-in Price:
Distance:
Shipping Period:
Awareness:

SL
No

CRITERION

LEVELS
Lowest
Ranked

Medium
Ranked

Highest
Ranked

Trade-in Price

Low

Medium

High

Distance

>5 mi

2-5 mi

0.1-2mi

Shipping Period

>7days

4-7days

2-3days

Awareness

Doesnt
Matter

Motivated

Highly
Motivated

Table 1- Consumer Preference Criterion

.
Step 2: Decision Making
Pairwise comparison of criterions is made. All possible combinations of criterions and
their levels are to be considered. Since there are four criterions with three levels each, the process
becomes tedious. There are several decision making tools available: Decision making tools
literature review here. 1000minds is a free online decision making tool. Criterions and their
levels are defined in the first step. Then the software classifies all the possible combinations of
criterions with different levels. To simplify ambiguity while decision making the following
preference is assumed:
Trade-in price > Distance > Awareness > Shipping Period
It then asks the decision maker to make decide from the two given set of bundles. The
software helps eliminate redundant decisions based on the previous decisions of the consumer.
The number of decision bundles without the software were 33 and the software eliminated 18
redundant decisions thus simplifying the process. The software has an integrated consistency
checker which ensures that there is no ambiguity in decision makers choice by repeating some
of the decisions. Table 2 shows the decision made inclusive of redundant decisions excluded by

the software taking into account two criteria. To ensure further consistency level of decision
making is upped by considering 3 criterions (Table 3) and 4 criterions (Table 4)
1.
b

Shipping Period

> 7 days

Shipping Period

4-7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

2.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Low

High

Distance

Distance

0.1-2 mi

2-5 mi

3.

This decision is 'redundant

Distance

Distance

>5 mi

0.1-2 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Doesn't Matter

4.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

High

Low

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

Low

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

0.1-2 mi

6.

This decision is 'redundant

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

4-7 days

2-3 days

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Doesn't Matter

7.

This decision is 'redundant

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

2-3 days

> 7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Doesn't Matter

Highly Motivated

8.

This decision is 'redundant

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

0.1-2 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Motivated

9.

This decision is 'redundant

Distance

Distance

0.1-2 mi

>5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Doesn't Matter

Motivated

10.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

Low

Awareness

Awareness

Doesn't Matter

Highly Motivated

11.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

High

Distance

Distance

0.1-2 mi

>5 mi

12.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

High

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Low

Medium

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

4-7 days

> 7 days

14.

This decision is 'redundant

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

>

<

>

>

>

>

<

>

<

<

<

<

13.

<

> 7 days

Awareness

Highly Motivated

>

4-7 days

Awareness

Motivated

Trade-in Price

Low

15.
a

Trade-in Price

Medium

Distance

Distance

>5 mi

0.1-2 mi

16.

This decision is 'redundant

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

2-3 days

4-7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

Trade-in Price

Low

17.

This decision

>

<

is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Medium

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

> 7 days

2-3 days

>

18.
a

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Low

Medium

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

19.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

Low

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

Distance

>5 mi

>

>

20.
c

Distance

2-5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

21.

This decision is 'redundant

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

High

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Doesn't Matter

22.

This decision is 'redundant

Distance

Distance

0.1-2 mi

>5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

<

>

<

Table 2- Consumer Decision (2 criteria)

23.
a

Trade-in Price

Medium

Trade-in Price

High

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

2-3 days

4-7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Motivated

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

High

Low

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

0.1-2 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Doesn't Matter

Highly Motivated

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

High

Medium

Distance

Distance

>5 mi

2-5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

<

24.

<

25.

26.

>

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

High

Medium

Distance

Distance

>5 mi

2-5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Doesn't Matter

Motivated

27.

<

This decision is 'redundant'

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Low

Medium

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

> 7 days

4-7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Low

Medium

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

0.1-2 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

Medium

<

28.

<

29.
a

Trade-in Price

Low

Distance

Distance

>5 mi

2-5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

High

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

2-3 days

4-7 days

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

High

<

30.

>

31.
a

Trade-in Price

Low

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

>5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Doesn't Matter

Trade-in Price

Medium

>

32.
a

Trade-in Price

High

Distance

Distance

2-5 mi

0.1-2 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Motivated

Highly Motivated

>

Table 3- Consumer Decision (3 criteria)


33.
a

Trade-in Price

Trade-in Price

Medium

High

Shipping Period

Shipping Period

2-3 days

4-7 days

Distance

Distance

0.1-2 mi

2-5 mi

Awareness

Awareness

Highly Motivated

Motivated

>

Table 4- Consumer Decision (4 criteria)

Step 3: Preference values


The preference values are obtained based on the decisions made from the previous section.
Table-5 illustrates the bar graph of the consumer preferences. Trade-in price

Table 5- Consumer Preference (Bar Graph)

Figure 2- Criterion value functions

Figure 3- Radar chart of criterion weights (consumer preference)

Figure 4- Relative importance of criteria

Figure 5- Normalized criterion weights and single criterion scores

1.2 MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF CELLPHONE DESIGN FEATURES:


Trade-in programs inspect the consumers cellphone condition for eligibility to receive
incentives. The data to evaluate the importance of cellphone conditions is obtained from the tradein programs website. For the current study data for Program C is considered. The main cellphone
design features that were involved were: Screen Damage, Power (on/off), Activation (Lock on / off)
and Water Damage. From previous section (trade-in programs) it is evident that model age plays a
vital role in determining the trade-in price. The trade-in price varies drastically with the change in
model age. Hence model age is also considered as one of the design feature. From this data (Table
-6) we can deduce the relative importance of each of these factors.

Model Age >Screen Damage > Power > Activation> Water Damage

1.
a
2

b
1
This decision is
'redundant'

Screen Damage
No
Water Damage
Yes

>

b
2

Screen Damage
Yes
Water Damage
No

2.
b
1

c
2

3.
a
1

c
3

4.
a
1

c
2

5.
d
2

e
1

6.
a
1

d
2

Water Damage
Yes
Model Age
3-4
Screen Damage
Yes
Model Age
0-2
Screen Damage
Yes
Model Age
3-4
Power
On
Activation
Lock On
Screen Damage
Yes
Power
On

>

c
1

c
2

c
1

e
2

d
1

Water Damage
No
Model Age
>5
Screen Damage
No
Model Age
3-4
Screen Damage
No
Model Age
>5
Power
Off
Activation
Lock Off
Screen Damage
No
Power
Off

Research Question:

To model consumer participation in trade-in programs of cellphones.


To study how the defining factors of trade-in programs affect the consumer
participation.
To study the social influence of environmentally conscious groups on consumers
to participate in trade-in programs.

Agent Based Simulation:


A well-defined target and aim should be specified before beginning the modelling
process. Followed by a set of precise rules to be performed by the agents. The rule system of the multiagent model is production system, the body of the system are as follows:
1. Defined set of rules
i.
Condition Part- Specifies when the defined rule
comes into action
ii.
Action Part- Carries out the defined action for a
specific rule.
2. A working memory
3. Rule Interpreter

Target:
1.

Consumers with cellphones, these cellphones have either reached their EoL or are
about to reach their EoL.
2. Consumers who are willing to buy new cellphones, with their old cellphone still in
working condition.
Aim: To create a model with the above target.
An agent based model is developed to analyze consumer participation rate in cellphone trade-in
programs. A production system rule was followed to define the model, where in a defined set of
rules are followed for respective actions by the agents. A well-defined target and aim is specified
for the modelling process. Three agent sets are defined for our model: Consumers, Trade-in
programs and online trade-in programs. Each of these agent sets are characterized by their
attributes. These agents interact with each other and their environment intelligently. Each of
these agents occupies a space in the virtual world. The outline of the model is shown if figure 1.

Assumptions:

Agents:
1. Consumers:
Consumers motivation/Behavioral intention is modelled based on Theory
of Reasoned action. Theory of reasoned action which states that an individuals
intention to engage in any behavior depends on the attitude about the behavior and the
subjective norms. Attitude is the summation of individuals outcome of the behavior
and the evaluation of the outcome. Subjective norm scales the social influence an
individual has in engaging in the behavior, the influence might be from family, friends,
social group or expert. It can be mathematically represented as follows:

BI =w A . A +w SN . SN

Where,
BI Behavioral Intention
A Attitude towards the behavior
SN Subjective Norms
wA Weight for attitude
wSN Weight for subjective norm
Based on TRA (theory of reasoned Action) we can now model consumers participating in
trade-in programs. The data and factors of trade-in programs are analyzed in the previous
section, we incorporate these factors into modelling a mathematical TRA equation to
determine consumers intention to participate in trade-in programs.
SL No
Maximiz

Trade-in
Factors
Trade-in Price

Weights

Range

Units

w1

4 517 (money)

e
Minimize
Minimize
Minimize

Convenience
Shipping
Cellphone Age

w2
w3
w4

0.1-5.0 (radius)
2- 7 (waiting period)
1 5 ( usage period)

miles
days
years

2. Trade-in Programs:

Baseline Model:
A basic model wherein there is no interactions between the agents. There is no output of the
model. The agents exist in their spatial dimension. This model will be our reference, and the effect of any
addition to the model can be captured effortlessly.

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