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Name Your Own Price at Priceline.com: Strategic Bidding and Lockout Periods

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  • Chia-Hui Chen

Abstract

A buyer suggests prices to N sellers in a time period and buys from the seller who accepts the bid first. The number of bidding rounds is determined by how frequently the buyer can make an offer. We show that with no limit on the frequency and without discounting, the price path is either kept flat initially with large jumps at the end or increasing steadily over time. Which class of path occurs in equilibrium depends on the buyer's trade-off between committing to a price ceiling versus finely screening the sellers' costs. With discounting, limiting the number of rounds mitigates the delay caused by the reluctance to raise bids in the first class of equilibrium and therefore can benefit the buyer. This result suggests why, in reality, bargaining parties often take measures to make their offers rigid and consequently force themselves to make fewer offers. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

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  • Chia-Hui Chen, 2012. "Name Your Own Price at Priceline.com: Strategic Bidding and Lockout Periods," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1341-1369.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:79:y:2012:i:4:p:1341-1369
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rds005
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Banerjee, Shraman, 2021. "Treating Symmetric Buyers Asymmetrically," MPRA Paper 105971, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Johannes Hörner & Larry Samuelson, 2011. "Managing Strategic Buyers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 379-425.
    3. Qingmin Liu & Konrad Mierendorff & Xianwen Shi & Weijie Zhong, 2019. "Auctions with Limited Commitment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 876-910, March.
    4. Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Optimal selling strategies when buyers name their own prices," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 135-171, June.
    5. William Fuchs & Andrzej Skrzypacz, 2013. "Bargaining with Deadlines and Private Information," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 219-243, November.
    6. Huang, Ching-I & Chen, Jong-Rong & Lee, Chiu-Yu, 2013. "Buyer behavior under the Best Offer mechanism: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from eBay Motors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 11-33.
    7. Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Optimal selling strategies when buyers name their own prices," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 135-171, June.
    8. Chia-Hui Chen & Junichiro Ishida, 2015. "A Tenure-Clock Problem," ISER Discussion Paper 0919, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    9. Chia‐Hui Chen & Junichiro Ishida, 2018. "Dynamic performance evaluation with deadlines: The role of commitment," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 377-422, June.
    10. Chia-Hui Chen & Junichiro Ishida, 2013. "Auctions Versus Negotiations: The Role of Price Discrimination," ISER Discussion Paper 0873, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    11. Shraman Banerjee, 2022. "Treating Symmetric Buyers Asymmetrically," Working Papers 2022-02, Shiv Nadar University, Department of Economics.
    12. Hiroshi Kitamura & Noriaki Matsushima & Misato Sato, 2023. "Which is better for durable goods producers, exclusive or open supply chain?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 158-176, January.
    13. Yan Jingwen & Azmawani Abd Rahman & Tong Tong, 2022. "Research on the Impact of BMI on Enterprise Performance Based on the Antecedence of Risk Perception," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-22, November.

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