IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uwarer/270777.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Your call: eBay and demand for the iPhone 4

Author

Listed:
  • Waterson, Michael
  • Doyle, Chris

Abstract

The iPhone 4 was introduced into the UK market on 24th June 2010 to significant consumer interest. This clearly exceeded supply through conventional channels, since there was very extensive activity in terms of bidding on eBay auctions for the product. We monitored all eBay transactions on the iPhone 4 for six weeks from introduction, with total transactions amounting to around £1.5m. We analyse determinants of the winning bid in terms of characteristics of the phone, the seller and the buyer. Our most notable and novel finding relative to previous studies is a very significant premium over list price being paid in almost all cases, with positive uplift factors including whether the phone was unlocked and whether it could be sold overseas. Demand fell over time, as evidenced by lower achieved prices, but the fall in price was relatively modest. A significant premium of 32GB over 16GB versions is revealed.

Suggested Citation

  • Waterson, Michael & Doyle, Chris, 2010. "Your call: eBay and demand for the iPhone 4," Economic Research Papers 270777, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uwarer:270777
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.270777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270777/files/twerp_949.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270777/files/twerp_949.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.270777?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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. 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.
    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. Paul Resnick & Richard Zeckhauser & John Swanson & Kate Lockwood, 2006. "The value of reputation on eBay: A controlled experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(2), pages 79-101, June.
    5. David Lucking‐Reiley & Doug Bryan & Naghi Prasad & Daniel Reeves, 2007. "Pennies From Ebay: The Determinants Of Price In Online Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 223-233, June.
    6. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato, 2006. "Price, quality, and reputation: evidence from an online field experiment," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 983-1005, December.
    7. Hossain Tanjim & Morgan John, 2006. "...Plus Shipping and Handling: Revenue (Non) Equivalence in Field Experiments on eBay," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-30, January.
    8. Elizabeth Hoffman & Dale J. Menkhaus & Dipankar Chakravarti & Ray A. Field & Glen D. Whipple, 1993. "Using Laboratory Experimental Auctions in Marketing Research: A Case Study of New Packaging for Fresh Beef," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 318-338.
    9. Luís Cabral & Ali Hortaçsu, 2010. "The Dynamics Of Seller Reputation: Evidence From Ebay," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 54-78, March.
    10. Ginger Zhe Jin & Andrew Kato, 2006. "Price, quality, and reputation: evidence from an online field experiment," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 983-1005, December.
    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. Nicollier, Luciana A., 2012. "Customers' Complaints and Quality Regulation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 990, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.

    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. 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.
    2. Michael Waterson & Chris Doyle, 2012. "Your Call: eBay and Demand for the iPhone 4☆," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 141-152, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Ian Ayres & Mahzarin Banaji & Christine Jolls, 2015. "Race effects on eBay," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 891-917, October.
    5. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Grebe, Tim & Kröger, Sabine, 2019. "How do sellers benefit from Buy-It-Now prices in eBay auctions?," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203606, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Engström, Per & Forsell, Eskil, 2018. "Demand effects of consumers’ stated and revealed preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 43-61.
    7. Gesche, Tobias, 2018. "Reference Price Shifts and Customer Antagonism: Evidence from Reviews for Online Auctions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181650, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Tobias J. Klein & Christian Lambertz & Konrad O. Stahl, 2016. "Market Transparency, Adverse Selection, and Moral Hazard," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1677-1713.
    10. Luís Cabral & Ali Hortaçsu, 2010. "The Dynamics Of Seller Reputation: Evidence From Ebay," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 54-78, March.
    11. Behnud Djawadi & Rene Fahr & Claus-Jochen Haake & Sonja Recker, 2017. "Maintaing vs. Milking Good Reputation when Customer Feedback is Inaccurate," Working Papers CIE 106, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    12. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2018. "Inside the Engine Room of Digital Platforms: Reviews, Ratings, and Recommendations," Working Papers halshs-01714549, HAL.
    13. Luís Cabral & Lingfang (Ivy) Li, 2015. "A Dollar for Your Thoughts: Feedback-Conditional Rebates on eBay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(9), pages 2052-2063, September.
    14. Christopher Schlägel & Birgitta Wolff, 2010. "Länderspezifische Effekte von Reputation und Information in Internetauktionen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 62(62), pages 14-41, January.
    15. Emma von Essen & Jonas Karlsson, 2019. "The effect of competition on discrimination in online markets—Anonymity and selection," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-18, August.
    16. Onur, Ilke & Velamuri, Malathi, 2014. "Competition, endogeneity and the winning bid: An empirical analysis of eBay auctions," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 68-74.
    17. Liu, Kang Ernest & Shiu, Ji-Liang & Sun, Chia-Hung, 2013. "How different are consumers in Internet auction markets? Evidence from Japan and Taiwan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-12.
    18. Behnud Mir Djawadi & René Fahr & Claus-Jochen Haake & Sonja Recker, 2018. "Maintaining vs. milking good reputation when customer feedback is inaccurate," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-23, November.
    19. Jennifer Brown & John Morgan, 2009. "How Much Is a Dollar Worth? Tipping versus Equilibrium Coexistence on Competing Online Auction Sites," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(4), pages 668-700, August.
    20. Tobias Gesche, 2022. "Reference‐price shifts and customer antagonism: Evidence from reviews for online auctions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 558-578, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    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:ags:uwarer:270777. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/ .

    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.