Group orders: research kit

A plan and materials for the first wave of direct research in area 11: interviews (“say”), money-flow mapping (“make”) and following live orders (“do”). Ready to run. Last updated November 8, 2026.

Goals

1. Understand why managers and joiners use the tools and payment methods they do.
2. Map where money, trust and information move in a group order, and where they break.
3. Rank the pains for managers and for joiners, separately.
4. Learn whether any manager would try a different payment step in a real order.

Hypotheses to test (from the teardown, Group orders: a teardown of what managers built):

• Managers’ biggest burden is bookkeeping (matching payments, tracking status, chasing deadlines), not the payment itself.
• Joiners accept Friends & Family risk because fees feel worse than the risk, not because they don’t care about protection.
• Cross-border joiners pay noticeably more and are sometimes excluded.
• Manager burnout is a main reason orders and accounts end.

Who

Adults only (18+). Many fans are teenagers. Excluding them keeps consent simple and avoids any question of collecting data from minors.

Mix: at least two countries for managers (for example the US and one in Southeast Asia or Europe), and a spread of fandoms. Korean-language managers can be a second wave, with a translator.

Recruiting

• X: managers announce orders with hashtags (#[name]GOs, “GO” plus the group name). Reply or DM with a short, friendly ask.
• Reddit: r/kpopforsale and r/kpopcollections.
• Discord servers for specific fandoms, with moderators’ permission.
• Snowballing: managers know other managers (one manager in the teardown got their Korean address from another manager).
• Incentive: a gift card or a contribution to the next fan project of their choice, roughly $30–50 for an hour. [Decide amount and currency.]

Sample message:

Hi! I’m a designer researching how group orders work: how you collect payments, track orders and handle shipping across countries. Would you be up for a 45–60 minute video call? I’d thank you with [incentive]. Nothing to sell, and I won’t share anything that could identify you.

Don’t mention bitcoin in recruiting. It biases who replies and what they say.

Interview guide: managers (45–60 minutes)

Warm-up (5 min)

• How did you start running group orders? How many have you run?
• Which groups or items, and where are your joiners?

Walk through the last order (20 min), asking them to share their screen and show the actual form, spreadsheet and messages where possible:

• From announcing it to the last package going out, what happened, step by step?
• Where did the money go at each stage, and in which currency?
• How did you know who had paid what? What went wrong?
• How long did the admin take?

Payments (10 min)

• Why do you ask for [Friends & Family / e-Transfer / other]?
• Have you lost money on an order? What happened?
• Have you had to cover someone’s share? For how long?
• How do international joiners pay you? What does it cost them?

Trust and reputation (5 min)

• How do new joiners decide to trust you?
• Have you had disputes or scams? How were they resolved?

Wrap-up (5 min)

• If one part of running orders disappeared, which would you pick?
• What would make you stop running orders?
• If a tool handled [their biggest pain], would you try it in a real order?

Interview guide: joiners (30–45 minutes)

• How did you start joining group orders? How many have you joined, and from where?
• Walk me through your last one, from finding it to receiving it.
• How do you decide whether to trust a manager?
• Have you lost money or items? What happened?
• How do you pay, and what does it cost you, including conversion?
• How do you keep track of what you’ve paid and what’s still coming?
• What’s the most frustrating part? What’s the best part?
• How do you feel about Friends & Family payments? Would you pay more for protection?

Money-flow mapping (make, 30 minutes, in or after the interview)

Use a shared whiteboard (FigJam, Miro or Excalidraw), or paper over video.

1. Draw the people: the manager in the middle, then joiners, the seller in Korea, the Korean address or forwarder, shipping companies, PayPal or the bank.
2. Draw the money: an arrow for every payment, labeled with amount, currency, method and when it happens.
3. Draw the information: forms, spreadsheets, emails, posts, DMs.
4. Mark the pain: red stickers where things break or take time, green where they work well.
5. Ideal version: “If you could redesign this from scratch, what would it look like?”

Photograph or export each map. Compare them afterwards for shared patterns.

Following live orders (do, 2–3 orders)

Ask 2–3 managers if you can follow one order from announcement to delivery, from public posts and a short check-in at each payment stage.

Record per stage: dates, number of joiners, late or wrong payments, questions received, drop-outs, total admin time (estimated by the manager), currency and fees.

Consent and data

• Explain the purpose, that participation is voluntary, and that they can stop at any time.
• Ask before recording. Store recordings privately and delete them after analysis.
• Use pseudonyms in all notes and write-ups. Don’t publish handles, screenshots with names, or anything that identifies a manager or joiner without explicit permission.
• No minors.

Analysis

• Per interview: a one-page summary (who, process, pains, quotes, surprises).
• Across interviews: cluster pains with sticky notes or affinity mapping, separately for managers and joiners. Rank them by how often they appear and how much they cost (money, time, trust).
• Check the hypotheses: for each, supported, contradicted or unclear, with evidence.
• Output: a short public write-up of findings, with a money-flow map of a typical order.

Timeline

[Open: who runs the interviews; whether to do a Korean-language wave; incentive budget.]