Public Versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions: Results from a Pokemon Field Experiment / Rama Katkar, David Lucking-Reiley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Katkar, Rama.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Reiley, David Lucking-.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8183.

NBER working paper series no. w8183

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Public Versus Secret Reserve Prices in eBay Auctions

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

Sellers in eBay auctions have the opportunity to choose both a public minimum bid amount and a secret reserve price. We ask, empirically, whether the seller is made better or worse off by setting a secret reserve above a low minimum bid, versus the option of making the reserve public by using it as the minimum bid level. In a field experiment, we auction 50 matched pairs of Pok,mon cards on eBay, half with secret reserves and half with equivalently high public minimum bids. We find that secret reserve prices make us worse off as sellers, by reducing the probability of the auction resulting in a sale, deterring serious bidders from entering the auction, and lowering the expected transaction price of the auction. We also present evidence that some sellers choose to use secret reserve prices for reasons other than increasing their expected auction prices.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2001.