On Using Mobile Crowdsourcing for Timely Information Solicitation

and Sharing of Prices

Hazleen Aris and Marina Md Din

College of Information Technology, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang, Malaysia

Keywords:

Mobile Crowdsourcing, Price Comparison, Information Sharing Model, Information Solicitation Model.

Abstract:

The increase in goods prices year after year has directly affected consumer expenditures. Survey from a

number of countries showed that the average household expenditures had also increased, notably in the past

two years. One way to alleviate the impact of the rise in goods prices is by being more selective in buying

the items. Being selective means buying the items at the stores that offer the lowest prices. To do that, a

mechanism to compare the prices of items between stores is needed, in which, the local pricewatch information

solicitation and sharing (LoPrice) model was proposed. The challenge to the design of such model is in the

choice of suitable approach for collecting the information on prices from different stores in a timely manner. In

this paper, mobile crowdsourcing is proposed to be the approach that is able to address the challenge. Review

on existing price comparison applications, including their advantages and disadvantages is also included. An

exploratory survey was also performed, which revealed that the use of mobile crowdsourcing is able to provide

timely information solicitation and sharing of prices.

1 INTRODUCTION

The ever increasing price of goods has directly af-

fected the household expenditures. This was proven

by facts and ﬁgures from a number of surveys per-

formed by local authorities, which showed increases

in the average monthly household expenditures. In

Malaysia, ﬁnding from the survey performed by the

Department of Statistics, which is performed every

ﬁve years, showed that the average household expen-

ditures increased by 12.1% in ﬁve years time from

2004/2005 to 2009/2010. A report on consumer ex-

penditure survey by US Bureau of Labor Statistics

also showed an increase of 3.5% in consumer spend-

ing in 2012, and this was the second consecutive

year that expenditures increased (of Labor Statistics’,

2014). In Singapore, the consumer price index (CPI)

for general household rose by 4.6% for the full year

of 2012 and by 2.4% for the full year of 2013.

Even though it is generally admitted that the in-

crease of prices in household items is just unavoid-

able, there should still be ways to ‘live with it’ in such

a way that the ﬁnancial impact on consumers, in par-

ticular the breadwinners, can be alleviated. One of the

ways is by being more selective in buying the items,

with regard to the prices. Being selective here means,

rather than simply buying an item, we ﬁrst compare

the price of the item between one store and another. It

is not uncommon that different stores offer different

prices for the same item of the same brand. This is

probably part of the marketing strategies and we can

take advantage of the strategy by being able to buy the

item at the lowest price.

The challenge lies in providing the means to en-

able such comparison to be made conveniently and

timely. Convenient means being able to perform the

comparison without having to leave the comfort of

one’s house or ofﬁce and without having to physically

move from one store to another to perform the com-

parison (and returned to an earlier store that offers the

lowest price). It will be best if the comparison can

be performed before they even leave the house for the

shopping trip. It can also help in planning the shop-

ping route. Timely means being able to obtain the lat-

est and current price update and being kept informed

when the price is no longer valid.

In this paper, we propose the use of mobile crowd-

sourcing approach in obtaining timely information on

the prices of items from the users. Mobile crowd-

sourcing is a form of crowdsourcing in which the ini-

tiator sends a task or makes available a task for vol-

untary undertaking by using mobile phones (V¨a¨at¨aj¨a

et al., 2011). The tasks are received or accessed

through mobile phones and completed tasks are also

518

Aris H. and Md Din M..

On Using Mobile Crowdsourcing for Timely Information Solicitation and Sharing of Prices.

DOI: 10.5220/0005109505180523

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Software Engineering and Applications (ICSOFT-EA-2014), pages 518-523

ISBN: 978-989-758-036-9

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

submitted using mobile phones.

In the next section, a review is made on a num-

ber of existing price comparison applications glob-

ally as well as locally (in Malaysia). In section 3,

the overview of our proposed solution, which is a

model for crowdsourcing information on prices of

items from users through their mobile devices, is

explained. In section 4, analysis results of an ex-

ploratory survey done to determine the potential ap-

plication of mobile crowdsourcing in the construction

of the LoPrice model is presented. Finally, section 5

concludes the paper.

2 CURRENT APPROACH

Traditionally, price comparison of items was done by

going to each store, which was time consuming and

taxing. It could also be done by browsing promo-

tional pamphlets sent to mailboxes. However, com-

parison was difﬁcult to be made this way because dif-

ferent pamphlets usually featured different items on

sale and not all stores provided the pamphlets. With

the advancement in the internet technology, stores

were seen to start having their online websites. Again,

not all items were featured on the websites and com-

parison of prices required users to surf from one web-

site to another. This had therefore lead to the develop-

ment of websites and applications that allowed com-

parison of prices from a number of different stores to

be made, which will be discussed next.

2.1 Price Comparison Applications

Many crowdsourcing applications have been devel-

oped as web-based and mobile, nine of which were

included in our review. These are CartCrunch

(CartCrunch, 2014), ShopSavvy (ShopSavvy, 2014),

Smoopa Shopping (Smoopa, 2014), Leclerc (Leclerc,

2014), ideola Price Comparison (Ideola, 2014),

Grocery King Shopping List (GroceryKing, 2014),

HuMuch (HuMuch, 2014), 1pengguna (KPDNKK,

2014) and Yellavia (Yellavia, 2014). Reasons for in-

clusion were

• these applications offer price comparison feature

• items under comparison include household items

CartCrunch is a location-dependent application. It

has the ability to scan information on items via an im-

age of a receipt. It has the feature that can ﬁnd the

best prices of every item purchased on the receipt and

provides the store location information of the items.

Most of the mobile applications such as

CartCrunch, ShopSavvy, Smoopa Shopping, Leclerc

and ideola Price Comparison read bar code in order

to obtain items information easily. However, user

still needs to enter the price and store information of

each item. Leclerc is an application developed for the

Leclerc Company to ensure that this company always

provides the best price to its customers. Therefore, it

only works if the price of its own product is cheaper

than the other stores.

Meanwhile, Grocery King Shopping List (Gro-

ceryKing, 2014) is the only application that provides

sync feature that enables users to share or email their

shopping list with family and friends.

HuMuch (HuMuch, 2014), is an example of web-

based application that performs similar functionali-

ties. Since it is a web-based application, users need

to become a member in order to use it. However, we

are not able to explore HuMuch further as it does not

support locations outside the United States.

Particularly in Malaysia, two such web-based ap-

plications are found, Yellavia (Yellavia, 2014) and

1pengguna (KPDNKK, 2014). Our experience with

Yellavia found that the prices shown were outdated

by a year or more! 1pengguna is a portal developed

by the government of Malaysia to provide price in-

formation on 105 consumer products. Information

is provided by a group of agents, which are special

members appointed by the government to provide the

product details. These agents are supposed to update

the information daily before 2 p.m. However, there

is no mechanism to verify whether or not the price is

updated because the application only displays the cur-

rent date read from the system. Our experience using

the application also showed that the information on

prices of items were only available for a very limited

number of areas.

It is believed that one of the reasons that caused

the slow update of information is the fact that the

information came from only a few limited sources

(KPDNKK, 2014). However, as can be seen in the

case of (Yellavia, 2014), crowdsourcing alone is not

able to sustain regular and continuous incoming infor-

mation as users need personal computers or laptops to

access the web-based portals.

To address the problems above, we are proposing

the use of mobile crowdsourcing in the solicitation of

information on prices of items through the develop-

ment of the LoPrice model. With mobile crowdsourc-

ing, the task of entering information is done using

hand held mobile phones or devices through mobile

applications. This will expedite the information so-

licitation process and allows for immediate update of

information.

OnUsingMobileCrowdsourcingforTimelyInformationSolicitationandSharingofPrices

519

3 LoPrice MODEL

Though being coined only recently (Howe, 2006), the

essence of crowdsourcing, that is, information shar-

ing, is not a new practice. People have been natu-

rally sharing and contributing ideas in solving prob-

lems for ages. Traditionally, the people involved in

the practice comprised a group of those who were

within a close physical and geographical contact with

each other. However, the advances in the information

and communication technology (ICT) have become

the catalyst that extends the practice beyond physical

and geographical boundaries.

Thus, crowdsourcing has been deﬁned in a more

speciﬁc tone that suits its currentness with a number

of characteristics attached to it. In their work, Es-

tell´es-Arolas and de Guevara (2012) listed the follow-

ing as the characteristics of crowdsourcing based on

their study on a number of existing crowdsourcing ap-

plications.

1. Clearly deﬁned crowd

2. Clear goal

3. Recompense received by crowd

4. Clear crowdsourcer

5. Crowdsourcer compensation

6. Online assignment

7. Open call

8. Uses internet

Amongst the beneﬁts of crowdsourcing is the

timeliness of the information obtained (Zheng, 2011).

Timeliness means being able to be updated about

something when it is still happening and being in-

formed when it is obsolete. This is important, es-

pecially in the context of the prices of items, which

change regularly due to policies by the government or

authorised bodies, promotion and marketing strategy.

This can only be achieved by obtaining the informa-

tion from multiple sources, that is, the crowd, through

crowdsourcing.

Figure 1 showed the overview of the LoPrice

model that utilises crowdsourcing as its main source

of information on prices of items. The objective of

the model is to enable timely comparison items prices

to be made between different stores. In other words,

by using the model that is manifested in the form of

a mobile application, users are able to compare the

prices of the items that they want to buy prior to leav-

ing their houses. They are therefore able to know

which store can offer them the lowest prices for the

items that they want to buy. They can straightaway

go to the store, hence saving their time, effort and of

course, money.

Figure 1: The overview of the LoPrice model.

To achieve the objective, it is crucial to have up-

to-date information on prices of items and due to the

frequency of price changes and the number of stores,

it is difﬁcult to rely on one source of information for

this or even a number of selected sources as seen

in (KPDNKK, 2014). Hence, the most suitable ap-

proach to obtain up-to-date information on prices that

is able to catch up with the challenges is by solicit-

ing it from the crowd through their mobile phones or

devices. The information shared includes item price,

item detail, its location (store) and duration of which

the shared price is valid (if known) as shown in Figure

Based on the characteristics of crowdsourcing ex-

tracted in (Estell´es-Arolas and de Guevara, 2012)

above, the LoPrice model has all the characteristics

except the fourth and ﬁfth characteristics. We do not

foresee this as a threat because the LoPrice model is

a research in progress and is therefore not owned by

any crowdsourcer yet.

4 EXPLORATORY SURVEY

On top of the justiﬁcation given above on the suitabil-

ity of mobile crowdsourcing to be used in the LoPrice

model, a survey was also performed to explore the po-

tential of using mobile crowdsourcing in the LoPrice

model from the perspective of its users. The objec-

tives of the survey was to identify the potential of us-

ing mobile crowdsourcing in information solicitation

of item prices. Four factors were identiﬁed to be con-

tributing to the potential of using mobile crowdsourc-

ing as shown in Figure 2. The survey questions were

ICSOFT-EA2014-9thInternationalConferenceonSoftwareEngineeringandApplications

520

designed according to these factors.

Potential

Usage pattern of

mobile devices

Mobile phone/

device capability

Readiness to

information

Infrastructure

Figure 2: Architectural concept of the model.

There was a total of 18 questions in the question-

naire, seven of which were demographics questions

and are not discussed in this paper. The remaining 11

questions were grouped according to the four factors

shown in Figure 2 and listed below.

• Mobile phone/device capability

8. Mobile phone/device availability

9. Device capability to access the internet

10. Mobile phone/device capability to take photo

• Mobile phone usage pattern

11. Mobile phone/device availability during shop-

ping trip

12. Mobile phone/deviceaccessibility during shop-

ping trip

13. Hours spend daily accessing the internet and/or

mobile applications

• Infrastructure

14. Type of mobile plan subscription

15. Network availability (referring to internet ac-

cessibility)

• Readiness to share information

16. Photo sharing through mobile phone/device

17. Current practice in sharing information on low

prices of items with others

18. Opinion about sharing information on low

prices of items with others

Prior to the actual distribution of the question-

naire, a pilot test was performed on the ﬁnal draft of

the questionnaire. The aim of the pilot test was to

identify problems with regard to the clarity and under-

standing of the questions asked. A total of ten respon-

dents participated in the pilot test. Each respondent

answered the questionnaire one at a time in the pres-

ence of the researcher. As a result of the pilot testing,

a number of problems with regards to the clarity of the

questions asked were identiﬁed and rectiﬁed. Conse-

quently, we experienced a smooth questionnaire an-

swering sessions with hardly any questions asked dur-

ing the actual survey despite answering them at the

booths with the presence of the researchers.

4.1 Survey Results

The questionnaires were distributed to the visitors of

the Universiti Tenaga Nasional Research Exhibition

(UNIREX) 2014 and International Invention, Innova-

tion and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) 2014, both

held in Malaysia. Additionally, online version of the

questionnaire was also prepared. At the end of the

survey, a total of 138 responses were received con-

sisting of 74 (53.62%) hard copy responses and 64

(46.38%) online responses. Prior to analysis, three

hard copy responses had to be excluded due to incom-

plete information.

Descriptive statistics was used in analysing the re-

sults. Table 1 to Table 11 below show the results of

the questions listed above.

Table 1: Question 8 - Possession of mobile phone/device.

Answer Percentage

Possess mobile phone/device 100%

Do not possess mobile phone/device 0%

Table 2: Question 9 - Ability to access internet using mobile

phone/device.

Answer Percentage

Can access 97.04%

Cannot access 2.96%

Table 3: Question 10 - Mobile phone/device capability to

take photo.

Answer Percentage

Can take photo 97.73%

Cannot take photo 2.27%

Table 4: Question 11 - Bringing mobile phone during shop-

ping trip.

Answer Percentage

Yes 90.91%

Sometimes 6.82%

No 2.27%

Table 5: Question 12 - Chance to use mobile phone/device

during shopping.

Answer Percentage

All the time 16.15%

Almost all the time 20.77%

Sometimes 54.62%

Almost never 6.92%

Never 1.54%

4.2 Discussion

From the analyses performed on the results obtained,

the following ﬁndings were made.

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Table 6: Question 13 - Time spent accessing inter-

net/applications through mobile phone.

Answer Percentage

Less than 2 hours 26.52%

Between 2 and 4 hours 36.36%

Between 4 and 6 hours 24.24%

Between 6 and 8 hours 7.58%

More than 8 hours 5.30%

Table 7: Question 14 - Subscription type.

Answer Percentage

Prepaid 26.52%

Post-paid with mobile data plan 66.67%

Post-paid without mobile data plan 6.82%

Table 8: Question 15 - Internet accessibility due to network

problem.

Answer Percentage

All the time 0%

Almost all the time 8.33%

Sometimes 77.27%

Almost never 12.12%

Never 2.27%

Table 9: Question 16 - Frequency of sharing photos with

others.

Answer Percentage

All the time 10.08%

Often 24.03%

As needed 48.84%

Hardly 13.95%

Never 3.10%

Table 10: Question 17 - Practice in sharing information on

prices.

Answer Percentage

Yes 40.91%

Sometimes 49.24%

No 10.00%

Table 11: Question 18 -Willingness to share information on

prices.

Answer Percentage

Yes 70.45%

Maybe 26.52%

No 3.03%

4.2.1 Mobile Phone/Device Capability

As can be seen from the results presented in sub-

section 4.1 above, all our respondents have mobile

phones or devices. Though this is probably a well

known and well accepted fact, the result obtained

from the survey helps to strengthen the claim made

on this. Furthermore, 97.04% of these mobile phone

holders are able to access the internet and applications

using their mobile phones or devices. This means that

their mobile phones and devices have the capability to

do so.

With regard to mobile phone or device capabil-

ity too, 97.73% of them have the feature that en-

ables them to take photo using the phones or de-

vices. Phones possession, internet accessibility and

phones capability are the enabling technologies to the

LoPrice model. Therefore, as far the devices avail-

ability, internet accessibility and capability are con-

cerned, they have already had the technologies re-

quired by the LoPrice model. This enables the use

of the application instantiated by the model without

much problem.

4.2.2 Mobile Usage Pattern

To be able to share information on prices of items, it is

important to understand the way they use their mobile

phones or devices. Result from our survey showed

that 97.73% of them bring their mobile phones or de-

vices with them whenever they go for their shopping

trips, with most of them are able to use their phones or

devices during the shopping trips. Only a very small

portion of them did not have the chance to use the

phone during their shopping trips (2.27%).

In term of the time spent browsing the internet

and accessing mobile applications, it was found that

majority of the respondents are accessing them be-

tween two and four hours a day, which, in our opinion,

is considered sufﬁcient for the purpose of updating

and sharing information with others. Therefore, from

the perspective of the current pattern in using mobile

phone or devices, it can be inferred that the way they

use their mobile phones and devices and their acces-

sibility during their shopping trips are making it pos-

sible for them to immediately share information on

prices of items.

4.2.3 Infrastructure

Infrastructure was found to be one of the inﬂuencing

factors in mobile crowdsourcing participation (Aris,

2014). With regard to the infrastructure, the survey

was looking into the types of their subscription to mo-

bile plan and their experience with network connec-

tivity disruption. The result showed that majority of

the respondents are post-paid subscribers with mobile

data plan (66.67%). This type of subscription means

more consistent access to the internet as they will be

billed monthly on their phones usage.

With regard to the network connectivity and avail-

ability, access to network is not seen as a problem

or hindrance because majority of the respondents ex-

perience network disruption only occasionally, with

12.12% almost never experience network disruption

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522

and 2.27% never experience any network disruption.

This shows a good infrastructure that is currently in

place, which supports the implementation of mobile

crowdsourcing of information.

4.2.4 Readiness to Share Information

The last perspective that we are looking at in deter-

mining the potential of crowdsourcing in timely in-

formation sharing of prices is on the readiness of the

respondents to share the information. For this per-

spective, we looked into their current practice in shar-

ing prices information and photos, and their mindset

about the necessity in sharing this information.

It was found that the practice of sharing of in-

formation such as photos is common amongst them.

Only a very small portion of them (3.10%) had never

shared photos with others. The rest did. Interestingly,

90.15% of them are currently sharing the information

on prices with their friends, through various mech-

anisms and more encouragingly, 96.97% of the re-

spondents are positive about sharing the information

on prices. Therefore, it can be seen that they are very

positive about information sharing with others and are

used to it. Item price is just one of the information that

they can share and based on the results obtained, there

is no problem seen with regard to this.

5 CONCLUSION

This paper theoretically justiﬁed the need for using

mobile crowdsourcing to obtain information on prices

of items from the public to enable timely compari-

son on prices of items to be made. The justiﬁcation

was made after reviewing a selection of existing ap-

plications. An overview of the LoPrice model was

also presented. On top of these, an exploratory sur-

vey was performed to determine the potential use of

mobile crowdsourcing for timely information shar-

ing of prices from the perspectives of mobile phone

or device capability, usage pattern, infrastructure and

readiness of the users to share information. Find-

ings from the review and survey showed that mobile

crowdsourcing is a viable approach for timely solici-

tation of information on prices from both the theoret-

ical (literature) and practical (survey) points of view.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to express our gratitude and special

thanks to the volunteers who had participated in the

online and off line survey. Your participation is very

much appreciated. This research idea won silver

medal in the International Invention, Innovation and

Technology Exhibition 2014 held in Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia.

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