Skip to main content

Experimental Evaluation of Declining Buyout Price Models for Online Auctions

  • Conference paper
Exploring the Grand Challenges for Next Generation E-Business (WEB 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 52))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 1173 Accesses

Abstract

There is disagreement in the auction literature on the question of whether dynamic Buy-It-Now (BIN) prices can increase the efficiency of online auctions. We report results from an experimental study with economically motivated subjects that compares the standard online auction format currently used on eBay with a new auction format (Online Linear Dutch Auction - OLDA) that allows for dynamic BIN prices. We find no statistically significant differences between these two auction formats. We then compare our results with these of another study investigating OOBCA (Online One-time BIN-price Change Auction - another auction format that allows for dynamic BIN prices), which finds that OOBCA outperforms the standard online auction format. OLDA is more dynamic in nature than OOBCA yet OOBCA outperforms a generalized static online auction design in the laboratory while the OLDA does not. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Ariely, D., Simonson, I.: Buying, Bidding, Playing, or Competing: Value Assessment and Decision Dynamics in Online Auctions. Journal of Consumer Psychology 13(1&2), 113–123 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Caldentey, R., Vulcano, G.: Online Auction and List Price Revenue Management. Management Science 53(5), 795–813 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Coppinger, V., Smith, V., Titus, J.: Incentives and Behavior in English, Dutch, and Sealed-Bid Auctions. Economic Inquiry 18(1), 1–22 (1980)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Durham, Y., Roelofs, M., Standifird, S.: eBay’s Buy-It-Now function: Who, when and how? Topics in Economic Policy and Analysis 4(1), 1316 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Gallien, J., Gupta, S.: Temporary and Permanent Buyout Prices in Online Auctions. Management Science 53(5), 814–833 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Grossman, S.: The Information Role of Upstairs and Downstairs Markets. Journal of Business 65(4), 509–529 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Kagel, J.H.: Auctions: A Survey of Experimental Research. In: Kagel, J.H., Roth, A.E. (eds.) The Handbook of Experimental Economics, pp. 501–586. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Kauffman, R., Wood, C.: Research Strategies for E-Business: A Philosophy of Science View in the Age of the Internet. In: Kauffman, R., Tallon, P. (eds.) Economics, Information Systems, and Electronic Commerce: Empirical Research, September 30, M.E. Sharp, Inc., USA (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Krishna, V.: Auction Theory. Academic Press, San Diego (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Mann, H.B., Whitney, D.R.: On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the other. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 18(1), 50–60 (1947)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Mathews, T.: The Impact of Discounting on an Auction with a Buyout Option: a Theoretical Analysis Motivated by eBay’s Buy-It-Now Feature. Journal of Economics (Zeitschrift fur Nationalokonomie) 81(1), 25–52 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Onur, I., Tomak, K.: Buy-It-Now or snipe on eBay? In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2003), pp. 841–845. IEEE Computer Society Press, Seattle (December 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Parsons, S., Marcinkiewicz, M., Niu, J., Phelps, S.: Everything You Wanted to Know about Double-auctions, but were Afraid to (Bid or) Ask, Working paper, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, p.49 (August 18, 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Plott, C.: Equilibrium, Equilibration, Information and Multiple Markets: From Basic Science to Institutional Design. Paper presented at the Nobel Symposium, Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Stockholm (December 4-6, 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Roth, A., Ockenfels, A.: Last-minute Bidding and the Rules for Ending Second-price Auctions; Evidence from eBay and Amazon Auctions on the Internet. American Economic Review 92(4), 1093–1103 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Schwartz, R.A., Francioni, R.: Equity Markets in Actions: The Fundamentals of Liquidity, Market Structure and Trading. John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Smith, V.L.: An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior. The Journal of Political Economy 20(2), 111–137 (1962)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Smith, V.L.: Experimental Economics: Induced Value Theory. American Economic Review 66(2), 274–279 (1976); Papers and Proceedings of the Eighty-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association

    Google Scholar 

  19. Smith, V.L.: Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in Economics. American Economic Review 93(3), 465–508 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Vragov, R.: Why is eBay the King of Internet Auctions? An Institutional Analysis Perspective, e-Service Journal, Summer 3(3), 5–28 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Vragov, R., Shang, D., Lang, K.: Should Online Auctions Employ Dynamic Buyout Pricing Models? In: Proceedings of 38th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Kona, Hawaii, pp. 381–391 (January 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Vragov, R.: Operational Efficiency of Decentralized Internet Auction Mechanisms. In: E-Commerce Research and Application (Available online April 23, 2009) (in press), doi:10.1016/j.elerap.2009.04.008

    Google Scholar 

  23. Wang, Sh., Jank, W., Shmueli, G., Smith, P.: Modeling Price Dynamics in eBay Auctions Using Principal Differential Analysis, Robert H. Smith School Research Paper, No. RHS-06-052 (December 8, 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Wenyan, H., Bolivar, A.: On-line Auction Efficiency: A Survey of eBay Auctions. In: Proceedings of WWW 2008 Conference, Beijing, China, April 21-26, pp. 925–934 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Whinston, A., Gopal, R., Tung, Y.: Efficiency Considerations in Online Auction Markets. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce 17(1), 311–328 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Yoo, B., Ho, K., Tam, K.: The Impact of Information in Electronic Auctions: An Analysis of Buy-it-now Auctions. In: Proceedings of 2006 Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Kona, Hawaii, pp. 167–174 (January 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Zhang, H., Yin, F., Hsu, V.: The Impact of the Buy-It-Now Option on Online Auctions: An Empirical Investigation. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on E-Business (Web 2007), Montreal, Canada (December 9, 2007)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Vragov, R., Shang, R.D., Lang, K.R. (2010). Experimental Evaluation of Declining Buyout Price Models for Online Auctions. In: Sharman, R., Rao, H.R., Raghu, T.S. (eds) Exploring the Grand Challenges for Next Generation E-Business. WEB 2009. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 52. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17449-0_22

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17449-0_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-17448-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-17449-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics