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Investigating buyer and seller strategies in online auctions

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  • A T Brint

    (University of Salford)

Abstract

The annual turnover of online auctions is already in tens of billions of dollars and this amount is predicted to grow substantially over the next few years. Hence, it is important to know how buyers and sellers can influence their chances of success. Therefore, data were collected from eBay auctions for three different categories of collectible items, namely those with a published guide price, those with a rough guide price and those having no easily obtainable guide price. The options available to buyers and sellers of items were then analysed. It was found that it was hard for the seller to influence an item's achieved price significantly, apart from items with no guide price where the starting price could have an effect. Most bidders bid close to the current value and so there were insufficient data to determine the consequences of timing on the placing of high bids. For low bids, delaying a bid was found to improve significantly the chances of winning for one of the data sets.

Suggested Citation

  • A T Brint, 2003. "Investigating buyer and seller strategies in online auctions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(11), pages 1177-1188, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:54:y:2003:i:11:d:10.1057_palgrave.jors.2601629
    DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601629
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Alvin E. Roth & Axel Ockenfels, 2002. "Last-Minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-Price Auctions: Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1093-1103, September.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Uri Simonsohn & Dan Ariely, 2008. "When Rational Sellers Face Nonrational Buyers: Evidence from Herding on eBay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(9), pages 1624-1637, September.
    3. Han, Jidong & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Zhang, Zelin, 2021. "Empirical Analyses of Nonlinear Effects of Reserve Prices on Ending Prices in Online Auctions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 86-102.
    4. Chen, Kong-Pin & Lai, Hung-pin & Yu, Ya-Ting, 2018. "The seller's listing strategy in online auctions: Evidence from eBay," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 107-144.
    5. Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Qiu, Chun & He, Yongfu, 2009. "Empirical Testing of the Reference-Price Effect of Buy-Now Prices in Internet Auctions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 211-221.
    6. Kamins, Michael A. & Noy, Avi & Steinhart, Yael & Mazursky, David, 2011. "The Effect of Social Cues on Sniping Behavior in Internet Auctions: Field Evidence and a Lab Experiment," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 241-250.
    7. J-M Chen & H-L Cheng & I-C Lin, 2011. "On channel coordination under price-dependent revenue-sharing: can eBay's fee structure coordinate the channel?," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(11), pages 1992-2001, November.
    8. Cong Feng & Scott Fay & K. Sivakumar, 2016. "Overbidding in electronic auctions: factors influencing the propensity to overbid and the magnitude of overbidding," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 241-260, March.
    9. R Malaga & D Porter & K Ord & B Montano, 2010. "A new end-of-auction model for curbing sniping," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(8), pages 1265-1272, August.
    10. Bahník, Štěpán & Yoon, Sangsuk, 2023. "Anchoring effect in business," OSF Preprints 98qdv, Center for Open Science.
    11. Grebe, Tim & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kröger, Sabine, 2006. "How eBay Sellers set “Buy-it-now†prices - Bringing The Field Into the Lab," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 181, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.

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