Sniping Bargains: Late Bidding on Pairs of eBay Auctions
Source: Wharton Research Scholars Journal

Internet auctions have resulted in much data that may shed light on buying and selling behavior. Furthermore, they have allowed for field experiments to explore these phenomena with more control and with greater depth. Finally, they have revealed new behavioral patterns worthy of exploration. One of these behaviors is late bidding, or sniping, which occurs when people place bids close to the auction’s close to supposedly have a greater chance of winning at a lower price. This study investigated the monetary benefit a user may gain by delaying the decision of which auction to bid on until the last two minutes. It reviewed past data on DVD auctions to examine this effect.

+ Full Paper (PDF; 129 KB)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Consumer issues, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.