Abstract：
Aiming at the fraud issues in the emerging on-line group-buying, by using mathematical derivation and simulation, the authors analyze the causes of fraud from the perspective of consumers’ herd behavior. It is shown that only providing the number of participants will make the information incomplete and may induce the consumers’ myopic trust and conformity, which leaves loophole for cheaters to exploit. Further, the total number of those who viewed the group-buying page is suggested that it is provided as a reference, which can prevent the consumers from being affected seriously by the others’ participation. In addition, the authors also present some other suggestions such as declaring the supported measures of consumer protection, adding the consumers’ comments and relieving the time pressure to consumers, all of which will provide reference for the benign development of China’s on-line group-buying market.
QIN Yong-heng, WAN Di-fang.The Cause Analysis and Countermeasures of Fraud Issues in On-line Group-buying——Based on the Perspective of Consumers' Herd Behavior[J] Economic Survey, 2011,V28(5): 118-122
2011 
