IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt21d715v9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Buy it Now: A Hybrid Internet Market Institution

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Steve
  • Friedman, Daniel
  • Milam, Garrett
  • Singh, Nirvikar

Abstract

This paper analyzes seller choices and outcomes in approximately 700 recent Internet auctions on eBay. The ‘Buy it Now’ option that is available in these auctions allows the seller to supplement or replace the auction with a posted price offer. We use a structural model to control for the endogenous conduct of the auction (e.g., number of bids and bidders) as well as product and seller characteristics. Among other results, we find that the ‘Buy it Now’ option was used more often by sellers with higher ratings (awarded by previous buyers) and sellers offering fewer units; and that posted prices were more prevalent for used items. Sellers obtained higher prices for unused and undamaged items overall, and especially when selling at the ‘Buy it Now’ price.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Steve & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2004. "Buy it Now: A Hybrid Internet Market Institution," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt21d715v9, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt21d715v9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/21d715v9.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel F. Spulber, 1996. "Market Microstructure and Intermediation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 135-152, Summer.
    2. Bulow, Jeremy & Klemperer, Paul, 1996. "Auctions versus Negotiations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 180-194, March.
    3. Cason Timothy N. & Friedman Daniel, 2002. "A Laboratory Study of Customer Markets," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-45, February.
    4. Stoll, Hans R., 2003. "Market microstructure," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 553-604, Elsevier.
    5. Cason, Timothy N. & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett H., 2003. "Bargaining versus posted price competition in customer markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 223-251, February.
    6. Anderson, Steve & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2004. "Seller Strategies on eBay," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt43z3965f, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    7. David Lucking-Reiley, 1999. "Using Field Experiments to Test Equivalence between Auction Formats: Magic on the Internet," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1063-1080, December.
    8. Daniel F. Spulber, 1996. "Market Making by Price-Setting Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(4), pages 559-580.
    9. Gale, Douglas, 1987. "Limit theorems for markets with sequential bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 20-54, October.
    10. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    11. Katkar Rama & Reiley David H, 2007. "Public versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions: Results from a Pokémon Field Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-25, January.
    12. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2001. "Information Gatekeepers on the Internet and the Competitiveness of Homogeneous Product Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 454-474, June.
    13. Colin Campbell & Dan Levin, 2006. "When and why not to auction," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 27(3), pages 583-596, April.
    14. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1983. "Sequential Bargaining with Incomplete Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(2), pages 221-247.
    15. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions and Bidding," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 25(2), pages 699-738, June.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Budish, Eric B. & Takeyama, Lisa N., 2001. "Buy prices in online auctions: irrationality on the internet?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 325-333, September.
    20. Cason, Timothy N. & Friedman, Daniel, 1996. "Price formation in double auction markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 1307-1337, August.
    21. Anderson, Steve & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2004. "Seller Strategies on eBay," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt43z3965f, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    22. Rama Katkar & David Lucking-Reiley, 2000. "Public Versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions: Results of Pok�mon Field Experiment," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0026, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    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. Liran Einav & Theresa Kuchler & Jonathan D. Levin & Neel Sundaresan, 2011. "Learning from Seller Experiments in Online Markets," NBER Working Papers 17385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Stanley Reynolds & John Wooders, 2009. "Auctions with a buy price," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(1), pages 9-39, January.
    3. Tim Grebe & Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel & Sabine Kröger, 2009. "Buy-it-Now Prices in eBay Auctions-The Field in the Lab," Cahiers de recherche 0950, CIRPEE.
    4. Peeters, R.J.A.P. & Strobel, M. & Vermeulen, A.J. & Walzl, M., 2007. "The impact of the irrelevant - Temporary buy-options and bidding behavior in online auctions," Research Memorandum 027, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    5. Axel Ockenfels & David Reiley & Abdolkarim Sadrieh, 2006. "Online Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12785, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Grebe, Tim & Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kröger, Sabine, 2006. "How eBay Sellers set “Buy-it-now†prices - Bringing The Field Into the Lab," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 181, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    7. Anderson, Steve & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2004. "Seller Strategies on eBay," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt43z3965f, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    8. 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.

    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. Anderson, Steven & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2007. "Buy it now: A hybrid market institution," MPRA Paper 4322, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Patrick Bajari & Ali Hortaçsu, 2004. "Economic Insights from Internet Auctions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 457-486, June.
    3. Philipp Maier, 2005. "A global village without borders? international price differentials at eBay," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Patrick Bajari & Ali Hortacsu, 2003. "Economic Insights from Internet Auctions: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10076, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. Christopher Helm & Tim A. Herberger & Marcel Tyrell, 2021. "Demand dynamics across secondary German Book markets: an information aggregation and synthetization approach," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 567-596, June.
    7. Philipp Maier, 2010. "An Analysis Of International Price Differentials On Ebay," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(3), pages 307-321, July.
    8. Ku, Gillian & Malhotra, Deepak & Murnighan, J. Keith, 2005. "Towards a competitive arousal model of decision-making: A study of auction fever in live and Internet auctions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 89-103, March.
    9. Katkar Rama & Reiley David H, 2007. "Public versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions: Results from a Pokémon Field Experiment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-25, January.
    10. Durham Yvonne & Roelofs Matthew R & Standifird Stephen S, 2004. "eBay's Buy-It-Now Function: Who, When, and How," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, October.
    11. 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.
    12. Bauner, Christoph, 2015. "Mechanism choice and the buy-it-now auction: A structural model of competing buyers and sellers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 19-31.
    13. 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.
    14. Han, Jidong & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Zhang, Zelin, 2021. "Empirical Analyses of Nonlinear Effects of Reserve Prices on Ending Prices in Online Auctions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 86-102.
    15. Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Kröger, Sabine, 2008. "Price formation in a sequential selling mechanism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 832-843, September.
    16. Tanjim Hossain & John Morgan, 2005. "A test of the revenue equivalence theorem using field experiments on ebay," Natural Field Experiments 00269, The Field Experiments Website.
    17. Jeffrey Livingston, 2010. "The effect of id verification in online auctions: Evidence from a field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00273, The Field Experiments Website.
    18. A T Brint, 2003. "Investigating buyer and seller strategies in online auctions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(11), pages 1177-1188, November.
    19. Anderson, Steven & Friedman, Daniel & Milam, Garrett & Singh, Nirvikar, 2007. "Seller strategies on eBay: Does size matter?," MPRA Paper 4324, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Amar Cheema & Peter Leszczyc & Rajesh Bagchi & Richard Bagozzi & James Cox & Utpal Dholakia & Eric Greenleaf & Amit Pazgal & Michael Rothkopf & Michael Shen & Shyam Sunder & Robert Zeithammer, 2005. "Economics, Psychology, and Social Dynamics of Consumer Bidding in Auctions," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 401-413, December.

    More about this item

    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:cdl:ucscec:qt21d715v9. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.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.