Assessing Sale Strategies in Online Markets Using Matched Listings

We use data from eBay to identify hundreds of thousands of instances in which retailers posted otherwise identical product listings with targeted variation in pricing and auction design. We use these matched listings to measure the dispersion in auction prices for identical goods sold by the same se...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican economic journal. Microeconomics Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 215 - 247
Main Authors Einav, Liran, Kuchler, Theresa, Levin, Jonathan, Sundaresan, Neel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Pittsburgh American Economic Association 01.05.2015
Subjects
Auctions
Conditional sales
Consumer behavior
Consumers
Demand curves
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Electronic commerce
Estimates
Experiments
Fees
Fees & charges
Fractions
Hypotheses
Internet
Market prices
Market strategy
Microeconomics
Online sales
Prices
Pricing strategies
Sales
Sales presentations
Sales strategies
Sales transactions
Shipping
Studies
United States > US
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:We use data from eBay to identify hundreds of thousands of instances in which retailers posted otherwise identical product listings with targeted variation in pricing and auction design. We use these matched listings to measure the dispersion in auction prices for identical goods sold by the same seller, to estimate nonparametric auction demand curves, to analyze the effect of buy it now options, and to assess consumer sensitivity to shipping fees. The scale of the data allows us to show that the estimates are robust to narrower criteria for matching listings, thereby addressing plausible concerns about endogeneity and selection biases.
ISSN:1945-7669
1945-7685
DOI:10.1257/mic.20130046