Snipers, Shills, and Sharks: eBay and Human Behavior

Book Description

Every day on eBay, millions of people buy and sell a vast array of goods, from rare collectibles and antiques to used cars and celebrity memorabilia. The internet auction site is remarkably easy to use, which accounts in part for its huge popularity. But how does eBay really work, and how does it compare to other kinds of auctions? These are questions that led Ken Steiglitz--computer scientist, collector of ancient coins, and a regular eBay user--to examine the site through the revealing lens of auction theory.

The result is this book, in which Steiglitz shows us how human behaviors in open markets like eBay can be substantially more complex than those predicted by standard economic theory. In these pages we meet the sniper who outbids you in an auction's closing seconds, the early bidder who treats eBay as if it were an old-fashioned outcry auction, the shill who bids in league with the seller to artificially inflate the price--and other characters as well. Steiglitz guides readers through the fascinating history of auctions, how they functioned in the past and how they work today in online venues like eBay. Drawing on cutting-edge economics as well as his own stories from eBay, he reveals practical auction strategies and introduces readers to the fundamentals of auction theory and the mathematics behind eBay.

Complete with exercises and a detailed appendix, this book is a must for sophisticated users of online auctions, and essential reading for students seeking an accessible introduction to the study of auction theory.

Customer Reviews:

Good read.......2007-08-27

This is a good book and I thought it was entertaining. Some may find it a bit dry because it is written more like a text book but it does have some interesting information, some interesting stories, and it has a lot of math in the back. We all love math right? The math is just for reference and is in the appenedix, it was a good book I thought. However, it was not so much about trading safely on ebay, it was more about how real life auction rings fix prices, some statistical analysis of online auctions etc.

This is a good book but if you are looking for something that explains ebay fraud and how to avoid it, look for Scams and Scoundrels, it describes more of what I thought this book would be about. While this is good, it does not have the information on identifying fraud auctions, fraud sellers, or how to protect yourself from ebay scams like Scams and Scoundrels does. Get them both, they are both good, just different takes on ebay criminals.

Enthralling. It gets better as it goes on........2007-07-08

I've never liked auctions, but that has not reduced the interest of this book in any way. It gives clear and engaging explanations of how different auctions work, both in theory and in practice. Special attention is given to eBay of course, and why it works the way it does.

The main text discusses strategies and the effects of different auction rules without resorting to any math, allowing the reader to gain an excellent grasp of the issues without concentrating on technical details. But the underlying theory is not shortchanged in any way by this, since the math is contained in substantial appendices, where it is laid out with complete, easy-to-understand explanations.

I highly reccommend this book both as an introduction to eBay, and to auction theory. For me, it's both.

Engaging, informative, and entertaining!.......2007-07-03

Snipers, Shills, and Sharks is an instant classic that will appeal to anyone interested in understanding why ebay works the way it does and how it relates to a beautiful economic theory developed over the past few decades. How do English, Dutch, and Vickrey auctions work? Why do experienced ebayers snipe? When should a seller set a secret reserve? Why is ebay a second-price instead of first-price auction? Why does ebay post the second highest bid and not the highest one? These answers and much more are crisply explained and supported by real-world and laboratory experiments. I opened the book knowing next to nothing about auctions and ebay (other than as a participants), and now I feel that I understand a great deal.

Steiglitz begins in Chapter 1 with classic auctions, including English and Vickery. He explains the theory underlying each auction, including the seminal result that bidders should be truthful in a second-price auction such as Vickery or English (with a few caveats). Chapter 2 motivates ebay as a natural evolution of the English auction where bidders participate over time, with a fixed deadline. Chapter 3 analyzes real bidding histories on ebay and other experimental results. He explains when practice agrees with the theory, but also when it doesn't on account of human behavior. It also explains the benefits of sniping. Chapter 4 explains why ebay is not a first-price auction; Chapter 5 discusses strategies for the seller, including how to set the opening bid and secret reserve; Chapter 6 discusses strategies for the bidder, including how much to bid and when. Chapter 7 describes various ways that participants cheat and the theory underlying it.

The theory is inherently mathematical, but Steiglitz does a masterful job of replacing the math with easy-to-understand intuition in the main text and deferring the technical details to the appendices. That being said, the appendices are definitely a worthwhile read if you remember single variable calculus. The theory is extremely elegant. Appendix A treats the class Vickrey results; Appendices B and C cover various extensions. Appendix D describes a number of experimental results. Numerous references are provided for further study.

One of the most charming features of the book is the author's conversational tone and his personal anecdotes, both as an avid coin collector and as a professor who performs classroom experiments. For example, Steiglitz illustrates the "winner's curse" via a classroom experiment where he auctions off a jar of nickels to the highest bidder.

Not terribly substantive, and not even that fun to read.......2007-05-01

I picked this book up with great anticipation after hearing about it from Marginal Revolution. As an avid ebay user for the past 5 years and an economics major back in college, I was hoping that I'd find some insightful nuggets on the inner workings of auction economics and psychology.

What I found instead was a somewhat tired text that did not have a whole lot to offer. The introductory chapters on various auction types were the best and mildly entertaining, but it went slowly downhill from there. It read more like a textbook than a book you'd want to read for pleasure. There is no math in the main text, by design. The author has chosen this to keep it readable to everyone, and keeps the formulas in the appendix. That's fine by me, and I wouldn't take off stars for that. The thing that boggs this book down is that there isn't much substance. He cites a few small studies here and there that aren't very conclusive and don't give me much insight on what works and doesn't work on ebay.

Putting Auction Theory to Work (Churchill Lectures in Economics)

Average customer rating:

Putting Auction Theory to Work (Churchill Lectures in Economics)
Paul Milgrom
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Economic History | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Statistics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Privatization | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

History | Mathematics | Science | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Business Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Science Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Deals | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Science | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0521536723

Book Description

Providing a comprehensive introduction to modern auction theory and its important new applications, this book is written by a leading economic theorist whose suggestions guided the creation of the new spectrum auction designs. Aimed at graduate students and professionals in economics, the volume provides the most up-to-date analysis of traditional theories of "optimal auctions" as well as newer theories of multi-unit auctions and package auctions, and shows by example how these theories are used. It explores the limitations of prominent older designs, such as the Vickrey auction design, and evaluates the practical responses to those limitations. Paul Milgrom is the Leonard and Shirley Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Economics, Stanford University. He is the author of more than sixty articles and co-author of the influential textbook, Economics, Organization and Management (Prentice Hall, 1992). Professor Milgrom is a pioneer in the economic theory of auctions and co-designer of the simultaneous, multiple round auction that the FCC adopted for selling radio spectrum licenses.

Visit the author's website for instructor resources.

Average customer rating:

Do not buy the online copy
The Best
Accessible and straightforward. Thumbs up!
Clear, Rigorous and Intuitive

Auction Theory
Vijay Krishna
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

International | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Microeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Math for Business | Skills | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Finance | New & Used Textbooks | Stores | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Science | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 012426297X

Book Description

Through accessible, detailed examinations of themes central to auction theory, Vijay Krishna explores auctions and competitive bidding as games of incomplete information. His results on bidding strategies, efficiency, and revenue maximization, and his clear proofs for each proposition, make this book both the standard reference on auctions and the first source of authoritative information about multi-unit auctions. Well organized and featuring straightforward intuition, Auction Theory's depth and breadth lay bare the complexity and utility of this growing field.

*The standard reference on auctions and the first source of authoritative information about multi-unit auctions
*Explores auctions and competitive bidding as games of incomplete information
*Uses accessible, detailed examinations of themes central to auction theory

Customer Reviews:

Do not buy the online copy.......2007-05-31

The scan quality is very poor, and the images are not readable. Yet Amazon charged me $13.

The Best.......2006-05-03

This is the best auction _theory_ book.
Any PhD student in economics or coorporate finance
should read it. Notice that if you are ONLY interested in
real-life auctions and not on the game theory behind
auction theory this book is not for you.

Accessible and straightforward. Thumbs up!.......2005-10-18

A balance between rigor and intuition. The book contains complete and clear proofs of almost all propositions and many- many fully-worked examples to reinforce intuition. The "chapter notes" provide with plenty further reading and the seven appendices at the end of the book cover lots of essential background. For those who are interested in auction theory and seek a rigorous treatment that at the same time is not intimidating, I highly recommend this book. After all, as Vijay Krishna states in the preface, "...the book is intended to be a conversation between the author and the reader".

Clear, Rigorous and Intuitive.......2003-11-12

This is a fabulous book for quickly uploading the central insights of the vast literature on the economics of auction design. Results are stated precisely and proven, often with an eye for developing intuition and an understanding of technique. The book can be read from cover to cover or dipped into as required. I find it an extremely useful aid to research.
Highly recommended.

Auctions: Theory and Practice (The Toulouse Lectures in Economics)

Average customer rating:

Brilliant explanation of real-world auction theory

Auctions: Theory and Practice (The Toulouse Lectures in Economics)
Paul Klemperer
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0691119252

Book Description

Governments use them to sell everything from oilfields to pollution permits, and to privatize companies; consumers rely on them to buy baseball tickets and hotel rooms, and economic theorists employ them to explain booms and busts. Auctions make up many of the world's most important markets; and this book describes how auction theory has also become an invaluable tool for understanding economics.

Auctions: Theory and Practice provides a non-technical introduction to auction theory, and emphasises its practical application. Although there are many extremely successful auction markets, there have also been some notable fiascos, and Klemperer provides many examples. He discusses the successes and failures of the one-hundred-billion dollar "third-generation" mobile-phone license auctions; he, jointly with Ken Binmore, designed the first of these.

Klemperer also demonstrates the surprising power of auction theory to explain seemingly unconnected issues such as the intensity of different forms of industrial competition, the costs of litigation, and even stock trading 'frenzies' and financial crashes.

Engagingly written, the book makes the subject exciting not only to economics students but to anyone interested in auctions and their role in economics.

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant explanation of real-world auction theory.......2006-04-20

Paul Klemperer was the principal auction theorist advising the UK Government on the design of the 3G spectrum auction in 2000, which raised $34 billion, the biggest auction in history. In this book he reviews auction design both theoretically and in practice - the two perspectives turn out to be very different.

Chapter 1 is a survey of auction theory. The author begins by identifying four types of auction: the English type of open ascending bids, the Dutch auction using descending bids where the first bidder wins, the first-price sealed-bid auction where the highest bidder wins and pays their own bid price, and the second-price sealed-bid auction (the Vickrey auction) where the highest bidder wins, but pays the amount bid by the second-highest bidder. If the latter seems counter-intuitive, note that in the English auction, the winner also pays an amount set by the second-highest bidder (the last person to drop out). Note also that the Dutch auction and the first-price sealed-bid auction are equivalent.

Another important distinction is between private-value auctions, where each bidder has their own, invariant valuation of the object(s) being auctioned, and common-value auctions, where bidders might alter their valuations depending on signals (i.e. observed bids) made by other participants.

The key result in auction theory is the Revenue Equivalence Theorem, which states that all the standard auction methods, under certain plausible conditions, generate the same revenues. This accounts for the fact that no one method of conducting auctions has displaced all the others. However, practical considerations often favor one kind of auction design over another, and this is analyzed extensively later in the book.

Chapter 1 finishes with a mathematical appendix which proves some of the main results plus some questions (and answers) from the Oxford University MPhil economics examination.

Chapter 2 is titled `why every economist should learn some auction theory' and extends application of the theory to economic issues such as litigation models, wars of attrition, market crashes and trading frenzies, and Internet sales models.

Chapter 3 is a detailed guide to auction design. Auction theory is about mathematical models and their properties. Auctions in the real world are competitions where real money is at stake and any and all tactics will be employed to win. Critical tactics to `game' auctions include collusion between bidders to avoid bidding against each other therefore lowering prices for everyone, and predatory behavior, where weaker bidders are frightened off either before or during the auction, thereby clearing the field and closing the auction early. Examples are given of extraordinary behavior by bidders which succeeded in effectively wrecking auctions as revenue-generating vehicles. Klemperer analyses each of the four types of auction in the context of deterring such behavior and concludes that there is no one right answer: auction design is `horses for courses'.

Chapter 4, `using and abusing auction theory', is aimed at academic auction theorists seduced by the mathematics at the expense of real-world issues. Klemperer argues that `undergraduate economics', taking into account the concerns of industrial organisation (e.g. monopolistic, oligopolistic and perfectly competitive behaviours) are more central to successful auction design than some of the more `sophisticated' topics of the graduate-level theory. He also emphasises, with examples, that political realities can negate even the best auction design, if the designer is naive and doesn't take politics into account in advance.

Chapter 5 gives an overview of the European 3G spectrum auctions, which ranged from brilliantly successful to absolute disasters, while chapter 6 explains in great detail exactly how the UK auction (perhaps the most successful) was designed. This chapter is extremely insightful in indicating how many general economic intuitions have to be employed, over and above the specific insights of auction theory, to get a design which can resist the best efforts of the bidders to sabotage its effectiveness.

Chapter 7 analyses some of the more interesting and puzzling bidder strategies seen in the auctions, while chapter 8 is the reprinted Financial Times article, `were auctions a good idea', which defends the idea of auctions against special pleading by industry lobbyists that they had to pay too much, and that as a consequence the industry was wrecked. Not so.

Overall, this book succeeds in creating in the non-economist reader a sense that they understand the basic terrain of auctions - what they are about - although there is clearly a much deeper set of theoretical results underpinning this map of the territory. The chapters tend to be quite repetitive, but that can help offset Klemperer's use of jargon whenever he gets into conceptual analysis. It looks as though he doesn't know he's doing it, and that the people who reviewed it are his colleagues who use this stuff every day and didn't notice either. With a small amount of additional explanation to clarify the use of terms, much of the conceptual analysis would have been more accessible. The alternative is to read the book twice! Recommended.

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive and Understandable

Combinatorial Auctions
Peter Cramton , Yoav Shoham , and Richard Steinberg
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0262033429

Book Description

The study of combinatorial auctions -- auctions in which bidders can bid on combinations of items or "packages" -- draws on the disciplines of economics, operations research, and computer science. This landmark collection integrates these three perspectives, offering a state-of-the art survey of developments in combinatorial auction theory and practice by leaders in the field.

Combinatorial auctions (CAs), by allowing bidders to express their preferences more fully, can lead to improved economic efficiency and greater auction revenues. However, challenges arise in both design and implementation. Combinatorial Auctions addresses each of these challenges. After describing and analyzing various CA mechanisms, the book addresses bidding languages and questions of efficiency. Possible strategies for solving the computationally intractable problem of how to compute the objective-maximizing allocation (known as the winner determination problem) are considered, as are questions of how to test alternative algorithms. The book discusses five important applications of CAs: spectrum auctions, airport takeoff and landing slots, procurement of freight transportation services, the London bus routes market, and industrial procurement. This unique collection makes recent work in CAs available to a broad audience of researchers and practitioners. The integration of work from the three disciplines underlying CAs, using a common language throughout, serves to advance the field in theory and practice.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive and Understandable.......2006-02-15

This book is aimed at researchers in Economics and multiagent systems who want to know about the latest research in combinatorial auctions---a field which has seen a lot of advances in the last decade. I found the book to be very accessible. Many of the chapters present summaries of recent work, bringing together in one place theorems and algorithms that have been published in different conferences. These summaries are a great way to learn all there is to know about combinatorial auctions without having to wade thru complex proofs or hard to read presentations.

Average customer rating:

An Introduction to Auction Theory
Flavio M. Menezes , and Paulo K. Monteiro
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Retailing | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 019927598X

Book Description

Auction theory is now an important component of an economist's training. The techniques and insights gained from the study of auction theory provide a useful starting point for those who want to venture into the economics of information, mechanism design, and regulatory economics. This book provides a step-by-step, self-contained treatment of the theory of auctions. It allows students and readers with a calculus background to work through all the basic results, covering the basic independent-private-model; the effects of introducing correlation in valuations on equilibrium behaviour and the seller's expected revenue; mechanism design; and the theory of multi-object auctions.

Rings in Auctions: An Experimental Approach (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems)

Average customer rating:

Rings in Auctions: An Experimental Approach (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems)
Angelo Artale
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Mathematics | Science | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Science | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 3540619305

Book Description

This book deals with experimental studies in economics. It investigates experimentally collusions in first-price auctions with private values. Since the main aim of the study is to see which mechanisms are used when the subjects may collude, the participants are allowed to communicate as long as they want, before they made their bids, but after they have known their private valuations. Moreover, the winner is allowed to make side payments to losing bidders. The subjects have to invent the mechanism they want to use by themselves. The theoretical possibilities are not explained to them. Four mechanisms have been observed. For each of them, we provide a game theoretical analysis and we compare the data with the theoretical prediction.

Auctions: The Social Construction of Value

Average customer rating:

Auctions: The Social Construction of Value
Charles W. Smith
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0520072014

Book Description

Long the preferred method of exchange for antiques and horseflesh, auctions are used today to sell everything from bestselling books to real estate, government bonds to abandoned automobiles. As sociologist Charles Smith reveals, the mechanical law of supply and demand rarely governs the auction process. Rather value is determined by a complex social process combining both the beliefs and actions of the auction participants and the assumptions and practices on the auction floor. Based on years of participation in and observation of different types of auctions and interviews with hundreds of auctioneers, Smith gives us not only a theoretical understanding of the auction process but the sights and sounds as well.

The Double Auction Market: Institutions, Theories, and Evidence (Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity Proceedings)

Average customer rating:

The Double Auction Market: Institutions, Theories, and Evidence (Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity Proceedings)
Dan Friedman , Daniel P. Friedman , and John Rust
Manufacturer: Westview Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0201624591

Book Description

This book is a collection of papers focused on markets organized as double auctions (DA). In a double auction, both buyers and sellers can actively present bids (offers to buy) and asks (offers to sell) for standardized units of well-defined commodities and securities. A classic example of a DA market (known by practitioners as an open outcry market) is the commodity trading pit at the Chicago Board of Trade. A related process is a call market, which is used to determine opening prices on the New York Stock Exchange.

Digital Dealing: How e-Markets Are Transforming the Economy

Average customer rating:

A prelude to online, automated, intelligent eCommerce.

Digital Dealing: How e-Markets Are Transforming the Economy
Robert Ernest Hall
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Theory | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Web Marketing | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Computer Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0393042103

Amazon.com

Despite floundering stocks, tanking valuations, accelerating layoffs, and intensifying skepticism, the Internet remains a place where business deals of all kinds are increasingly executed. Stanford economics professor Robert Hall studied the myriad forms of business-to-consumer and business-to-business "electronic dickering" now evolving online, and he astutely analyzes their structure and potential in Digital Dealing. "Consumers buy books and sell Barbie dolls. Investors buy stocks and bonds. Businesses buy steel ingots and sell bulldozers," he writes. All consistently improve these automated systems in the process, he adds, and will ultimately ensure they are more efficient than comparable types of traditional dealmaking. In a discussion certain to spark the imagination, Hall details six primary methods now used to consummate such online transactions: the eBay model (many sellers offering many products to many buyers), the OffRoad model (one seller offering multiple units of one product to many buyers), the FreeMarkets model (one buyer requesting one product from many suppliers), the Nasdaq model (many sellers offering similar products to many buyers), the Priceline model (many customers seeking similar products from many sellers), and the Grainger/Amazon model (one seller offering many products to many buyers at rates that may be set or negotiable). Readers should find his insights illuminating and potentially transferable to their own operations. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

A leading economist explains where and how electronic deal making will flourish and highlights common pitfalls for entrepreneurs and investors. Digital Dealing gets to the heart of e-commerce by explaining the principles of e-market systems: which players will come to the table and why, and how automated deal making can improve the efficiency of their commerce. With examples ranging from the history of NASDAQ to the rise and fall of Priceline, this concise book details how the major deal-making methods—auctions, real-time exchanges, and posted-price sales engines—can determine the success or failure of an e-commerce enterprise. In addition, Robert Hall shows how careful decisions about information sharing, patents, network effects, government regulations, and other factors will allow entrepreneurs to make the most of Internet business opportunities. As e-market volume more than doubles each year—and the success stories increasingly stand out among the many failures—understanding the principles of electronic deal making has become critical. This book sheds needed light on fundamental new business models.

Customer Reviews:

A prelude to online, automated, intelligent eCommerce........2004-01-25

In spite of predictions of doom by some, eCommerce is here to stay, and in fact will evolve into something that might be called "eDealing" or "eNegotiation". Whatever it is called, the ability to negotiate deals real-time on the Web is something that is coming fast, and will be driven by the need for transparency and efficiency in this kind of deal-making. The author has given an interesting but elementary account of what he has named "digital dealing", which could be read by anyone who is interested in this type of technology. All of the current financial institutions will eventually have to face up to the presence of e-markets in the months and years ahead. Due to space constraints, only the first four chapters will be reviewed here.

In chapter 1 of the book the author gives an overview of the nature of e-markets, and the phenomenon of "dickering" (bargaining or haggling) for the best price. Successful e-markets in his view must support automated versions of dickering, and engage in deal-making despite the desire to hide the 'best price'. The author gives four steps that he believes will ensure a successful e-commerce system: the identification of potential trading partners, followed by the transmission and reception of trading interest and dickering with potential partners, the actual carrying out the deal, and lastly the providing of the information about the deal to other traders. He also lists, and then discusses what he believes are the most effective e-market models: eBay, OffRoad, FreeMarkets, Nasdaq, Priceline, and Grainger. The author also discusses the need for transparency in terms of three categories, namely the identity of traders, the terms of the bids, and the terms of the deal. The author does not overemphasize the role of e-markets, and clearly many firms still using traditional business practices are feeling threatened by them. No doubt they will have to adapt to the organized, efficient, and rational nature of e-markets.

Chapter 2 overviews the "deal engines" that can do auctions, with the first example the author studying being the English auction, which is deployed by sites such as eBay, and which the author claims is the predominant form of auctioneering on the Internet. What is interesting about the eBay auction process, as pointed out by the author, is that it uses "proxy bidding", which does not require a bidder to be logged on in the bidding process. This automation of the bidding process will be even more powerful when it is extended to more elaborate financial transactions. The author also discusses the trade-offs involved in transparency during the bidding process. First-price and second-price sealed-bid auctions are also discussed, and the author compares these three different types of auctions according to their advantages for bidder and seller. The author also explains the use of the activity rule in making auctions more transparent. Even more importantly, the author discusses two-sided auctions, which are used in electricity auctions for example, and the various auction abuses that can occur.

In chapter 3, the author discusses various auction mechanisms that are in place for stocks and bonds. Treasury auctions are discussed first, the author pointing out the reason for such a thin tick in such auctions, namely that there is not a wide variation in the estimation of the price of Treasury bills by investors. The author discusses municipal bonds next, emphasizing the advantages of getting into the auction in the last minute. Due to their relatively new arrival in e-auctions, corporate bond auctions are discussed only briefly via the OpenBook auction house of W.R. Hambrecht, which the reader can get more information on if needed on the Web. This is followed by a very interesting discussion on auctions for private equity, with OffRoad Capital furnishing an example of selling private equity via a semi-open-book single-price auction. The author points out the similarity with mutual funds when investing in OffRoad, and discusses the three phases that OffRoad uses for selling a new issue of private equity. The author ends the chapter with discussions of the W.R. Hambrecht IPO auction and auctions for traded stock.

The author overviews, in chapter 4, the role of B-to-B procurement auctions in eMarkets, asserting that automated dickering is a playing a larger role in a business that is now at $100, 000, 000, 000, 000 worldwide. One of the downsides though for e-markets he says is that cooperation between buyer and seller will be difficult because of the standardization in the bid process. The negotiation that must occur when custom-made capital equipment is involved cannot be done easily in e-markets he claims. He is certainly correct if gauged by current standards, but online negotiation is now an intense area of research, and there are many new approaches that allow real-time negotiation online that will fill the requirements that the author discusses. FreeMarkets.com is discussed at the most successful of the online industrial procurement engines. The global supply management function of FreeMarkets has been profitable so far, the author argues, but its biggest problem is that one could use its platform to seek bids to replace its services. These services, according to the author, could become a commodity, with its price set to low levels via the capabilities that FreeMarkets has allowed the clients to use. The author contrasts FreeMarkets with Perfect.com, the latter of which provides software, called PerfectMarket, to actually serve as consultants for online virtual auctions. Suppliers are asked to formulate bidding strategies illustrating how they would respond to what is occurring during an auction. This procurement strategy can be refined by running auctions several times, and the bidding rules are kept secret by Perfect Market, which then effectively acts like a trusted third party. The author remarks that Perfect Market is the only auction system to use the second-price Vickrey principle where bids include more than one price. It is the opinion of this reviewer that online auctioneering will become even more sophisticated in the years ahead, due mainly to advances in machine intelligence.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books