Maryland professors found that buyers saved an average of $4 per person, or $19 billion total, at the popular online auction site. By W. David Gardner
By InformationWeek
Researchers Wolfgang Jank and Galit Shmueli studied eBay The two associate professors at the university's Robert H. Smith School of Business worked with the Indian School of Business' Ravi Bapna, who maintained a sniper Web The difference is called "consumer surplus" and the Maryland researchers found it averaged at least $4 per auction. "This is the first time consumer surplus has been quantified in online auctions," said Shmueli in a statement. "You just can't quantify this for traditional retailers." Jank said all three major parties involved in eBay's auctions -- buyers, sellers, and the company itself -- benefit from eBay auctions. "All three parties on eBay win," he said. "Obviously the consumers win because they accrue a very large surplus... which is either money they can put in the bank or spend." Noting that it's difficult to quantify the value for sellers, Jank said they win in the sense that eBay attracts a "large critical mass of potential buyers" for the sellers. The value to eBay is "obvious," he said, because of the funds generated for the company by the auctions. More than 4,500 U.S. and European eBay auctions in 2003 were examined in the professors' research. Their complete study, titled "Consumer Surplus in Online Auctions," will be published in the Journal of Information Systems Research.
0 comments:
Post a Comment