Subject:
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Re: Does auction length matter?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 4 May 1999 21:15:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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717 times
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In lugnet.market.theory, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Chris Ernest Hall wrote:
>
> > It seems to me that auction length (beyond making them absurdly short) doesn't
> > matter that much; that there is an innate level of activity that is required to
> > arrive at the efficient price, and if you make the auction shorter you just
> > compress that activity into a shorter amount of time.
> >
> > Anyone else have an opinion on this?
> >
> > - chris
>
> Interesting, thanks! Result seems counter intuitive, though. I know that
> I don't have time to search every day, and in fact would consistently
> miss auctions that started and ended within 3 days. Is publicity not a
> factor? How could that be?
I think publicity is a factor, but eBay has such a critical mass of buyers and
sellers that there will always be enough people available to fill the
compressed activity. This is why eBay's stock price is so high - wall street is
betting that reprocing eBay is much harder than reproducing Amazon.com, due to
the network effects of having so many people locked into one venue.
For smaller auctions, publicity is definitely a big deal. If you don't have the
critical mass of buyers, then you should lean towards letting the auction go on
longer.
> Is it possible that the results are skewed by this particular set being
> a relatively perfect market(1)? Or by the likely participants all being
> drawn from a class that checks a lot more frequently than I do?
I think it's possible. If you were auctioning off something rarer and more
unique (a mint in box Blacktron I set, say) you would be far better off letting
your auction go for longer, to make sure everyone who might want to buy it had
a chance to hear about it, and thus find the one person who's price is the
highest.
> 1 - from a market information theory perspective... I do NOT mean it
> imply that eBay is perfect, or that it isn't. We've been down that road,
> don't go there, it's not condusive to "calm, collected, principled
> debate" (2), thanks.
I followed the threads about eBay's auction rules with great interest. My step-
mother is former Chief Economist of the SEC and a great authority on auction
theory. She was very impressed by the quality of the ideas in the debate. I'm
glad there's a separate newsgroup for it now.
- chris
> 2 - per the charter of the group
> --
> Larry Pieniazek http://my.voyager.net/lar
> FDIC Know your Customer is wounded, thanks to you, but not dead...
> See http://www.defendyourprivacy.com for details
> For me: No voyager e-mail please. All snail-mail to Ada, please.
> - Posting Binaries to RTL causes flamage... Don't do it, please.
> - Stick to the facts when posting about others, please.
> - This is a family newsgroup, thanks.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Does auction length matter?
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| (...) Awesome!!! Say, are there trade books or journals on this sort of thing? (Must be, but I wouldn't know where to look.) (...) Say, would she like to sign up to participate here? :-) --Todd (26 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.market.theory)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Does auction length matter?
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| (...) Interesting, thanks! Result seems counter intuitive, though. I know that I don't have time to search every day, and in fact would consistently miss auctions that started and ended within 3 days. Is publicity not a factor? How could that be? Is (...) (26 years ago, 4-May-99, to lugnet.market.theory)
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