THE EXPANSION ENGINE IN A NEW ENTRANT MARKETPLACE: COMMUNITY FEATURES AND A POTENTIAL BOUNDARY CONDITION IN THE TOCO CASE

Abstract

Purpose: This study examines how Toco’s Community Space shapes growth mechanisms in a new entrant marketplace. The study investigates how the Expansion Engine operates when users already participate in established external community ecosystems, a contextual condition not explicitly differentiated in the original framework.

Research Methodology: An exploratory qualitative case study combined semi-structured interviews with eight participants, community observation, and digital document analysis. Data were analysed through open, axial, and selective coding, while trustworthiness was supported through multi-source triangulation.

Results: Toco was only partially effective as a digital enabler; users enacted non-monetary value exchange only to a limited extent; and value integration remained incomplete. Uneven application stability constrained the digital enabler; richer information, trust, and social support remained concentrated in external community ecosystems; and community contributions were not consistently connected to visible reputation or traceable transactions. These constraints were particularly evident among sellers embedded in established external community ecosystems.

Limitations: This study is limited by its single-case, cross-sectional design and small purposive sample of eight participants. Seller participants were drawn from the trading card game (TCG) segment, where established external communities may shape users’ needs and behaviour differently from other product categories. The findings therefore provide contextual insights into Toco’s early growth phase and should not be generalised to all marketplace platforms or user segments without further research.

Contribution: This study contributes to digital platform and marketplace research, social commerce, platform ecosystem management, and information systems by examining how the Expansion Engine operates in a new entrant marketplace with an integrated community feature. It offers an empirical account of how application stability, value exchange, and value integration shape community activation, and identifies the maturity of users’ external community ecosystems as a potential contextual condition. The findings may inform researchers studying platform growth and managers designing community features, seller engagement, and discovery-to-transaction mechanisms in early-stage marketplaces.