Posted price selling and online auctions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anwar, Sajid; Zheng, Mingli
• 署名单位: University of the Sunshine Coast; Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting & Finance; University of Macau
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2014.11.005
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 81-92
• 关键词: Online auctions; Posted price selling; Buy-it-now; Allocative inefficiency; Random matching; eBay auctions

摘要

In an auction-style listing at eBay, sellers have the option to set a posted price (also known as buy-it-now price), which allows buyers to instantly purchase an item before the start of the auction. This paper provides a rationale for such a selling mechanism. When many identical items are offered for sale and there are many buyers, random matching between auctions and the bidders can cause allocative inefficiency. We show that, with the buy-it-now option, some high valuation buyers buy the item before the start of the auction. In the case of a single seller with many items for sale, this not only reduces the allocative inefficiency, but also increases the seller's expected revenue. In the case of many competing sellers, if sellers choose between the strategies of (i) auction only or (ii) auction, with buy-it-now option, the option of buy-it-now will be used with positive probability in any equilibrium. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.