A Transaction Utility Approach for Bidding in Second-Price Auctions

In both the Vickrey and eBay auctions, bidding the reservation price is the optimal strategy within the conventional utility framework. However, in practice, buyers tend to bid less than their reservation prices, and bid multiple times, thus increase their bids, in the course of an auction. In this paper, we show that both underbidding and multiple bidding behaviors can be consistent with utility maximization, if buyer's utility incorporates a transaction utility (reference price dependent) component. Transaction utility is based on the difference between the buyer's reference price and actual price paid; it captures the perceived value of the deal. More specifically, we show that the optimal bid is lower than the reservation price, but higher than the reference price. Furthermore, buyer may re-bid (above the prior optimal level) if the reference price is revised upon observing a higher current price.     

Name-your-own-price as participative pricing strategy: a review of the literature from 2001–2017

ABSTRACT

Name-your-own-price (NYOP), a pricing strategy often referred to as a reverse auction, is a participative pricing mechanism in which consumers have a relatively high control over the price they pay for a product or service. In an NYOP mechanism, buyers generate the final price of a product or service when they bid above an unrevealed threshold price set by the seller. Although NYOP as a pricing strategy was previously investigated, the literature remains scarce and fragmented. This paper attempts to assemble the relevant findings of this pricing strategy, by systematically reviewing all publications from 2001 to 2017. We explored the impacts of this mechanism for companies and consumers, such as increased profit for companies and higher savings for consumers, reduced competition for companies and increased satisfaction for consumers. We also highlighed the best practices of NYOP, such as the bidding practices, threshold price, and willingness to pay.     

Maximizing earnings and price fairness perceptions in online consumer-to-consumer auctions

We examine the effects of starting bids on seller earnings in online consumer-to-consumer auctions. As starting bids increase, and the number of bidders increase, seller earnings increase. Both the affiliated private value model and a reference price explanation explain seller earnings. Bidder price fairness perceptions are also evaluated and, higher starting bids positively impact price fairness perceptions for winning bidders but have an adverse effect on losing bidders. In total, these findings suggest that sellers receive greater earnings as well as no adverse price fairness perceptions from winning bidders by setting starting bids higher.     

Bid-Elicitation Interfaces and Bidding Behavior in Retail Interactive Pricing

Advances in information technology have led to a substantial increase in the use of interactive pricing mechanisms, where buyers (i.e., consumers) and sellers (i.e., retailers) enter a formal computer-mediated price-negotiation process during which consumers submit bids for a specific product. This article examines how the interface used for bid elicitation affects bidding behavior and, ultimately, retailer profit. Our focus is on one key aspect of the bid-elicitation interface – how retailers require bidders to articulate their bids. Evidence from four experiments involving economically consequential bids demonstrates that the candidate bid amounts specified by the retailer have a strong influence on bidding behavior, and consequently also on retailer profit. In particular, the level of candidate bid amounts has a positive effect on actual bid amounts, whereas it has a negative impact on the likelihood that a consumer will actually submit a bid. Critically, we show that the former effect can more than offset the latter to cause an increase in retailer profit. We propose and find support for two distinct pathways driving this phenomenon – the candidate bid amounts (1) influence bidders’ valuations of the offered product and (2) shape bidders’ beliefs about what bid amounts will be successful. Our results highlight the importance of the design of user interfaces for interactive pricing, demonstrating that even seemingly innocuous aspects of interfaces can have a dramatic impact on bidding behavior and retailer profit.     

Effect of Buyer and Seller Experience on Buy It Now Pricing

ABSTRACT

Although auctions have been around for centuries, online auctions are still a relatively new phenomenon. This paper examines the phenomenon of online auctions, specifically on a pricing option known as “Buy It Now.” With this option, a buyer can purchase merchandise immediately at a stated price and truncate the auction process. Auction items sold with a Buy It Now price tend to be at a higher price than the high bid price for an identical item sold through an ascending-bid auction. In addition, Buy It Now prices tend to attract risk averse bidders while high bidders of ascending-bid auctions tend to be less risk averse or risk neutral bidders. On the other hand, we found more experienced sellers sell their items with a Buy It Now price while less experienced sellers sell their items through an ascending-bid process. Thus, experience and risk are factors in choosing a Buy It Now price for the seller and buyer.     

Strategic Bidding for Multiple Units in Simultaneous and Sequential Auctions

A buyer in an electronic marketplace may be interested in buying a bundle of items, where any one item in the bundle may not be of particular interest. The emergence of online auctions allow such users to obtain bundles by bidding on different simultaneous or sequentially run auctions. Because the number of auctions and the number of combinations to form the bundles may be large, the bundle bidding problem becomes intractable and the user is likely to make sub-optimal decision given time constraints and information overload. We believe that an automated agent that takes user preferences and budgetary constraints and can strategically bid on behalf of a user can significantly enhance user profit and satisfaction. Our first step to developing such an agent is to consider bundles containing many units of a single item to be bought from auctions that sell only multiple units of one item type. We assume that users obtain goods over several days. Expectations of auctions and their outcome in the future allow the agent to bid strategically on currently open auctions. We present an expected utility based strategy to decide how many items to bid for in the current auctions, and the maximum price to bid for each item. We evaluate our proposed strategy in different configurations by varying the number of items sold per auction, number of concurrently running auctions, expected closing prices, etc. We simulate several multiple unit English auctions per day, over multiple days, where most of the bidders bid their true utilities drawn from a distribution. The strategic bidding agent has knowledge of this distribution and uses it to determine its bids. A strategic agent who looks farther ahead into the future produces larger returns when there are few strategic bidders. We also evaluate the effect of risk attitudes on the relative performance of the bidders.     

Auctioning countermeasures in the WTO

We offer a first formal analysis of auctioning retaliation rights within the WTO. We show that the auctions exhibit externalities among bidders, and we characterize equilibrium bidder behavior under alternative auction formats. If the violating country is prevented from bidding to retire the right of retaliation against it, then the possibility of “auction failure” arises, whereby no bids are made despite positive valuation by bidders. If the violating country is instead permitted to bid, then auction failure is precluded, and indeed the right of retaliation is always retired. We evaluate these different auction formats from normative (revenue, compliance, efficiency) standpoints.     

On The Reference Point Effect of Reserve and Buy It Now Prices

In recent years, a trend in retail pricing has been to give consumers greater autonomy in setting their own prices, be it through auctions or other forms of participative pricing. Such consumer pricing autonomy often requires the seller to set limits in the form of price floors and price ceilings. Price floors and ceilings in our auction settings are referred to as reserve prices (RP) and Buy It Now (BIN) prices, respectively. We examine the effect of RP and BIN presence and magnitude on the number of bidders and ending price. Using auctions, we uncover consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) through bids. WTP is malleable through reference cues. Our focus is on two such cues: BINs and RPs. Results of two field studies, augmented with a laboratory study, show that both BINs and RPs result in lower bidder entry, but have an overall positive effect on ending price. Furthermore, results show that RP is more effective than a comparable BIN magnitude and that these two pricing cues are substitutes. The study design allows the authors to rule out alternative explanations. Open RP and BIN's effect on ending price is due to a reference point effect rather than a price truncation effect. Thus, retailers can increase WTP through changing these reference cues and exploit a richer choice set over which to shape a malleable WTP. The quantification of the interaction between RP and BIN gives managers the ability to jointly take advantage of both RP and BIN.     

Deposit AI as the “invisible hand” to make the resale easier: A moderated mediation model

While existing works pay little attention to price setters and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) agents in second-hand trading, the current research examines whether, and how, price setter (AI VS. seller)affects buyers' willingness to pay (WTP)in the case of second-hand trading on P2P platform. 25 interviews and 3 online studies have been conducted to demonstrate the results: (i) compared with goods priced by sellers, buyers are more willing to pay for goods priced by platform AI (Studies 1&2), (ii) buyers' perceived objectivity mediates the relationship between price setter and buyers' WTP (Study 2), (iii) perceived reductionistic of AI eliminates the effect of price setter on WTP (Study 3), and (iv) augmented intelligence (vs. AI)can have equal effect on buyers’ WTP (Study 4). These findings offer considerable implications for practitioners on how to build an AI pricing agent that is superior to humans on P2P second-hand trading platforms while ensuring the well-being of platform traders.     

Experts and Amateurs: The Role of Experience in Internet Auctions

The use of auctions as a pricing mechanism has grown dramatically over the last few years. The introduction of electronic auctions has significantly widened the pool of consumers who participate in auctions and increased the number of companies attempting to sell their products in an auction format. Previous empirical research on auctions has focused almost exclusively on the behavior of professional bidders in high stakes common value auctions or the behavior of students in laboratory experiments. We collect data on a large number of electronic auctions, across four product categories, to explore the behavior of consumers bidding in a real marketplace. In particular, we focus on the role experience plays in their bidding behavior to uncover whether consumer learning drives the bidding process towards outcomes described in the theoretical literature on auctions. We find that experience does indeed lead to behavior which is more consistent with theory although the proportion of experienced bidders who behave in a manner inconsistent with theory remains quite large.     

Return on Quality Improvements in Search Engine Marketing

In search engine marketing, such as on Google, advertisements' ranking and prices paid per click result from generalized, second-price, sealed bid auctions that weight the submitted bids for each keyword by the quality of an advertisement. Conventional wisdom suggests that advertisers can only benefit from improving their advertisement's quality. With an empirical study, this article shows that quality improvements have complex effects whose returns are actually unclear: 5% of all quality improvements to an advertisement lead to higher prices (measured by price per click) per keyword, 100% to a higher number of clicks, 53% to higher costs for search engine marketing, and 37% to lower profits. Quality improvements lead to higher weighted bids, which only lower prices if they do not improve the ranking of the advertisement. Otherwise, better ranks likely lead to higher prices. A decomposition method can disentangle these effects and explain their effects on search engine marketing costs and profits. Finally, the results indicate that advertisers benefit if they lower their bids after improvements to advertising quality.     

A comparison of different pay-per-bid auction formats

Pay-per-bid auctions are a popular new type of Internet auction that is unique because a fee is charged for each bid that is placed. This paper uses a theoretical model and three large empirical data sets with 44,614 ascending and 1,460 descending pay-per-bid auctions to compare the economic effects of different pay-per-bid auction formats, such as different price increments and ascending versus descending auctions. The theoretical model suggests revenue equivalence between different price increments and descending and ascending auctions. The empirical results, however, refute the theoretical predictions: ascending auctions with smaller price increments yield, on average, higher revenues per auction than ascending auctions with higher price increments, but their revenues vary much more strongly. On average, ascending auctions yield higher revenues per auction than descending auctions, but results differ strongly across product categories. Additionally, revenues per ascending auction also vary much more strongly.     

Ascending Combinatorial Auctions with Risk Averse Bidders

Ascending combinatorial auctions are being used in an increasing number of spectrum sales worldwide, as well as in other multi-item markets in procurement and logistics. Much research has focused on pricing and payment rules in such ascending auctions. However, recent game-theoretical research has shown that such auctions can even lead to inefficient perfect Bayesian equilibria with risk-neutral bidders. There is a fundamental free-rider problem without a simple solution, raising the question whether ascending combinatorial auctions can be expected to be efficient in the field. Risk aversion is arguably a significant driver of bidding behavior in high-stakes auctions. We analyze the impact of risk aversion on equilibrium bidding strategies and efficiency in a threshold problem with one global and several local bidders. Due to the underlying free-rider problem, the impact of risk-aversion on equilibrium bidding strategies of local bidders is not obvious. We characterize the necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect Bayesian equilibria of the ascending auction mechanism to have the local bidders to drop at the reserve price. Interestingly, in spite of the free-riding opportunities of local bidders, risk-aversion reduces the scope of the non-bidding equilibrium. The results help explain the high efficiency of ascending combinatorial auctions observed in the lab.     

一种多属性的多物品拍卖方法研究

通常意义的多物品拍卖中,卖方只对买方的竞标价格和数量感兴趣,而不考虑竞标的其他属性。而在实际交易时,卖方往往需要考虑买方竞标更多的属性,如买方的企业信誉、付款方式、合作关系等,卖方对不同属性的买方竞标评价值不同。为此采用一种多属性的多物品拍卖模型,并用基于效用理论的多属性决策方法PROMETHEE-Ⅱ且属性的优先值与属性值成非线性关系正弦准则的优先函数进行实证分析。     

(Un)expected Bidder Behavior in Spectrum Auctions: About Inconsistent Bidding and Its Impact on Efficiency in the Combinatorial Clock Auction

The combinatorial clock auction is a two-stage auction format, which has been used to sell spectrum licenses worldwide in the recent years. It draws on a number of elegant ideas inspired by economic theory. A revealed preference activity rule should provide incentives to bid straightforward, i.e., consistent with the bidders’ valuations on a payoff-maximizing package, in each round of the clock phase. A second-price rule should set incentives to bid truthfully in both phases. If bidders respond to these incentives and bid straightforward in the clock phase and truthful in the second sealed-bid stage, then the auction is fully efficient. Unfortunately, bidders might neither bid straightforward in the clock phase nor truthful on all packages in the second sealed-bid stage due to strategic reasons or practical limitations. We introduce metrics based on Afriat’s Efficiency Index to analyze straightforward bidding and report on empirical data from the lab and from the field in the British 4G auction in 2013 and the Canadian 700 MHz auction in 2014, where the bids were made public. The data provides evidence that bidders deviate significantly from straightforward bidding in the clock phase, which can restrict the bids they can submit in the supplementary phase. We show that such restrictions can have a significant negative impact on efficiency and revenue.     

Coveted or Overlooked? The Psychology of Bidding for Comparable Listings in Digital Auctions

This article elaborates on, and provides evidence of the herd behavior bias -- the tendency to gravitate toward, and bid for, auction listings with one or more existing bids, ignoring comparable or even more attractive unbid-for listings available at the same time -- exhibited by buyers in digital auctions. Some listings attract many bidders and become coveted, the center of bidding attention, while other equivalent or even superior listings are overlooked, receiving no bids at all. Empirical analysis using data from digital auctions across different product categories shows that this herd behavior bias is attenuated with increasing bid price, but increases with the difficulty of evaluating quality. The practical implications of these findings, and promising research opportunities in this area are also discussed.     

Revenue implication of auction value in <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-price sealed-bid auctions: An experimental study

In this paper, we show that in a heterogeneous bidding community with predominantly risk-seeking bidders, third-price sealed-bid auctions yield higher revenue for the seller than first-price sealed-bid auctions when the auction value is low. Conversely, when the value of the auction is high, first-price sealed-bid auctions yield higher revenue for the seller than third-price sealed-bid auctions. Existing theoretical findings for a homogeneous group of risk-seeking individuals imply that third-price sealed-bid auctions should generate higher revenues for the seller than first-price sealed-bid auctions. Our results for low-value auctions agree but our results for high-value auctions do not agree with the existing findings. We discuss the implications of this discrepancy as a function of the shift in goal orientation from a win-focus to a value-focus as the value of the auction increases.

Reducing information asymmetry in the auctioning of non-perishable experience goods: The case of online wine auctions

We highlight the importance of reducing the perceived risk associated with information asymmetry for experience goods. We analyse a major online non-perishable experience good, wine, from the seller's perspective. The mechanism for lowering information asymmetry is the verification service offered by the auctioneer. By focusing on unsold items/lots, the wine and auction characteristics affecting the probability of a sale are identified. Results show that the verification of the wine's provenance increases the probability of sale by 5.7 percent and leads to an expected increase of 5.1 percent in the auction price. When both effects are combined, the increase in the expected revenue of the seller is 7.3 percent. We test and find no evidence of selection bias. Given the heterogeneity in wine prices, a quantile regression analysis shows how the results differ for high-priced wines compared to lower priced wines. Results highlight how the mechanisms to lower the degree of information asymmetry work both in attracting bidders to online auctions and encouraging bidders to submit higher bids.     

The Determinants of Outcome in UK Take–over Bids

In this paper we have investigated the determinants of the outcome of 238 friendly and hostile take–over bids that occurred in the UK during the 1980s. We also use our model for prediction purposes and in order to map the effects of a variety of independent variables on the probability of the bid being successful. Our main results can be summarised as follows. First, target management resistance and the wealth effect of a bid are key determinants of the outcome of a bid. Second, we find limited evidence to suggest that share ownership by the bidding company and by target directors also contributes significantly to bid outcome. In the latter case we find a non–linear relationship consistent with the argument that when director holdings are low the bid is discouraged but when they are high the bid is encouraged. Third, our model is good at predicting outcome for all bids but weak at predicting the outcome of hostile bids on their own.     

Increasing Price Transparency: Implications of Consumer Price Posting for Consumers' Haggling Behavior and a Seller's Pricing Strategies

In an attempt to gain a better position in haggling, consumers often seek a seller's pricing information (e.g., whether the posted price is negotiable, the discount and transaction prices) before going to that seller. Although traditionally difficult to obtain, such information is becoming increasingly available due to consumer price posting (CPP), whereby consumers post and share their purchase price information on the Internet. In this analytical study, we consider a market in which a seller, who chooses between a fixed price policy and a haggling policy, serves two types of consumers who differ in their willingness to pay and haggling costs. We explore how CPP can affect consumers' behavior and the seller's pricing strategies (i.e., pricing policy and the associated prices). In the absence of CPP, our model features a two-sided uncertainty: the seller does not know individual consumer's type and thus may find it optimal to use a haggling policy to price discriminate consumers, whereas consumers do not readily observe the seller's cost type and pricing policy, and thus are uncertain whether their haggling will be fruitful. In the presence of CPP, consumers' uncertainty about the seller's pricing policy is resolved. Because CPP can improve price transparency, inhibit consumers' acceptance of a posted price and spur price haggling, it seems apparent that it should benefit consumers and hurt the seller. However, our analysis shows that CPP can lead to fewer purchases, higher prices and even a greater seller profit. It further shows that although CPP surely increases information accessibility, it can also reduce the amount of information available to consumers. These results are in sharp contrast to the conventional wisdom in the literature.