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Hard and Soft Closes: A Field Experiment on Auction Closing Rules

In: Experimental Business Research

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Houser

    (George Mason University)

  • John Wooders

    (University of Arizona)

Abstract

Late bidding in online auctions has attracted substantial theoretical and empirical attention. This paper reports the results of a controlled field experiment on late bidding behavior. Pairs of $50 gift certificates were auctioned simultaneously on Yahoo! Auctions, using a randomized paired comparison design. Yahoo? site allows sellers to specify whether they wish to use a hard or soft close, and this enabled us to run one auction in each pair with a soft close, and the other with a hard close. An advantage to our randomized paired design is that differences in numbers of bidders, numbers of simultaneously occurring auctions and other sources of noise in bidding behavior are substantially controlled when drawing inferences with respect to treatment effects. We find that auctions with soft-closes yield economically and statistically significantly higher mean seller revenue than hard-close auctions, and that the difference is due to those cases where the soft-close auction is extended.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Houser & John Wooders, 2005. "Hard and Soft Closes: A Field Experiment on Auction Closing Rules," Springer Books, in: Amnon Rapoport & Rami Zwick (ed.), Experimental Business Research, chapter 0, pages 123-131, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-0-387-24243-9_6
    DOI: 10.1007/0-387-24243-0_6
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Marie BLUM & Régis BLAZY, 2021. "The three stages of an auction: how do the bid dynamics influence auction prices? Evidence from live art auctions," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2021-10, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    2. 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.
    3. Sander Onderstal, 2020. "Premium auctions in the field," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 24(1), pages 39-63, June.
    4. Yan Chen & Peter Cramton & John A. List & Axel Ockenfels, 2021. "Market Design, Human Behavior, and Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5317-5348, September.
    5. Sascha Füllbrunn & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2012. "Sudden Termination Auctions—An Experimental Study," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 519-540, June.
    6. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Holmes, Jessica & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2011. "Jumping and sniping at the silents: Does it matter for charities?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 395-402, June.
    7. Shahriar, Quazi & Wooders, John, 2011. "An experimental study of auctions with a buy price under private and common values," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 558-573, June.
    8. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Pinker, Edieal & Seidmann, Abraham & Vakrat, Yaniv, 2010. "Using bid data for the management of sequential, multi-unit, online auctions with uniformly distributed bidder valuations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 202(2), pages 574-583, April.
    10. Yoshimoto, Hisayuki & Nakabayashi, Jun, 2019. "Search and resale frictions in a two-sided online platform: A case of multi-use assets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 85-105.

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