An analysis of bidding activity in online auctions

Abstract

Online auctions are rapidly becoming one of the significant forms of electronic commerce to buy and sell goods and services. This form of electronic commerce has unique workflows that do not exist in other forms of e-commerce infrastructures. Bidding activity is one of the most important transactions in online auction sites and trends within bidding activity can be used to design business-oriented metrics and resource management techniques specific to online auction sites. This paper provides an analysis of bidding activity of online auction sites including i) popularity of bidders, sellers, and winners, ii) bidding activity within different auction price ranges, and iii) arrival rate of new bidders and bidding activity within groups of auctions with the same unique number of bidders. © Springer-Verlag 2004.