IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/14811.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bid early and get it cheap - Timing effects in Internet auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Bramsen, Jens-Martin

Abstract

Most internet auction sites, like eBay, use a proxy bidding system where bidders can put in their maximum bid and let a proxy bidder (a computer) bid for them. Yet many bidders speculate about how to bid and employ bidding strategies. This paper examines how the timing of bids can affect the final price. In a unique data set of 17,000 Scandinavian furniture auctions it turns out that early price increases, i.e. much early bidding, scare off bidders and therefore result in lower prices, whereas much late bidding results in higher prices. Sniping is therefore not a successful strategy to avoid bidding wars.

Suggested Citation

  • Bramsen, Jens-Martin, 2008. "Bid early and get it cheap - Timing effects in Internet auctions," MPRA Paper 14811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:14811
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14811/1/MPRA_paper_14811.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bajari & Ali Hortaçsu, 2004. "Economic Insights from Internet Auctions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 457-486, June.
    2. Ulrike Malmendier & Young Han Lee, 2011. "The Bidder's Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 749-787, April.
    3. 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.
    4. Ockenfels, Axel & Roth, Alvin E., 2006. "Late and multiple bidding in second price Internet auctions: Theory and evidence concerning different rules for ending an auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 297-320, May.
    5. Axel Ockenfels & Alvin E. Roth, 2001. "The Timing of Bids in Internet Auctions: Market Design, Bidder Behavior, and Artificial Agents," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-33, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bramsen, Jens-Martin, 2008. "Learning to bid, but not to quit – Experience and Internet auctions," MPRA Paper 14815, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. 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.
    3. Bramsen, Jens-Martin, 2008. "A pseudo-endowment effect in internet auctions," MPRA Paper 14813, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel, 2014. "Does laboratory trading mirror behavior in real world markets? Fair bargaining and competitive bidding on eBay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 143-154.
    2. Nicola Dimitri, 2007. "Last minute bidding equilibrium in second price internet auctions," Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID) University of Siena 001, Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development (DEPFID), University of Siena.
    3. Nicola Dimitri, 2022. "Last minute only bidding is implausible in eBay sealed bid type-of-auctions," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 225-239, June.
    4. Kevin Hasker & Robin Sickles, 2010. "eBay in the Economic Literature: Analysis of an Auction Marketplace," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(1), pages 3-42, August.
    5. Glover, Brent & Raviv, Yaron, 2012. "Revenue non-equivalence between auctions with soft and hard closing mechanisms: New evidence from Yahoo!," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 129-136.
    6. 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.
    7. Hortacsu, Ali, 2005. "Trust and Reputation on eBay: Micro and Macro Perspectives," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt8vj7d50q, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    8. Grebe, Tim & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kröger, Sabine, 2021. "How do sellers benefit from Buy-It-Now prices in eBay auctions?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 189-205.
    9. Taylor, Greg, 2012. "Defensive sniping and efficiency in simultaneous hard-close proxy auctions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 51-58.
    10. Gary Bolton & Ben Greiner & Axel Ockenfels, 2013. "Engineering Trust: Reciprocity in the Production of Reputation Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 265-285, January.
    11. Anna Adachi, 2016. "Competition in a Dynamic Auction Market: Identification, Structural Estimation, and Market Efficiency," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(4), pages 621-655, December.
    12. Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel, 2012. "Behavioral economic engineering," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 665-676.
    13. Ian Ayres & Mahzarin Banaji & Christine Jolls, 2015. "Race effects on eBay," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 891-917, October.
    14. Philipp Herrmann & Dennis O. Kundisch & Mohammad S. Rahman, 2013. "To Bid or Not to Bid Aggressively? An Empirical Study," Working Papers Dissertations 08, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    15. Anwar, Sajid & McMillan, Robert & Zheng, Mingli, 2006. "Bidding behavior in competing auctions: Evidence from eBay," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 307-322, February.
    16. Dan Ariely & Axel Ockenfels & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "An Experimental Analysis of Ending Rules in Internet Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 890-907, Winter.
    17. Duffy, John & Ünver, M.Utku, 2008. "Internet auctions with artificial adaptive agents: A study on market design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 394-417, August.
    18. Bucklin, Randolph E. & Sismeiro, Catarina, 2009. "Click Here for Internet Insight: Advances in Clickstream Data Analysis in Marketing," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 35-48.
    19. Marta Stryszowska, 2013. "Multiple and last-minute bidding in competing internet auctions," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 17(4), pages 273-305, December.
    20. Axel Ockenfels, 2002. "New Institutional Structures on the Internet: The Economic Design of Online Auctions," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2002-08, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Internet auctions; Auction fever; Pseudo-endowment; Bidding behavior; eBay; Strategies; WTP;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:14811. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.