Abstract
The first non-docking sharing-bike program of the world appeared in China at the beginning of 2016 with the increasing popularity of mobile payment, GPS and other technology innovations. As the competition among sharing-bike sector is getting fierce, the strategies adopted by companies to battle for market share are limited to costly money burning schemes, i.e., to provide more bikes and offer less service charges. This study aims to explore an operationalizable business model on the basis that the operating profit for bike-sharing companies is only sustainable with increasing customer satisfaction. Data were collected from 346 sharing bike users using online questionnaire website. Three prominent factors, namely, safety and green transport, flexibility and convenience, and service and maintenance are shown to significantly contribute to user satisfaction. Facilitated with AMOS, a structural equation model (SEM) was developed to quantify the explaining powers of the identified factors as well as the overall model. A business strategy founded on such results may grant more likelihood of financial success, and is recommended to the industry.
JEL classification numbers: M21, O14, Q01, Q56
Keywords: Bike sharing, Sharing economy, User satisfaction, Green transport, Structural equation, AMOS