Empirical Research On The Determinants Of End-Price In Online Auctions

At present, online auction has become a major form of online shopping. Purchase price is an important indicator to measure the result of the auction; therefore, it has become a hot issue to study the influence factors of end-price abroad. However, the online auction started late in China, research on this issue is relatively rare. Most previous studies are based on eBay web site, but due to China's different social, economic and demographic characteristics, it still needs to confirm whether these influence factors of Purchase price in Chinese online auction site like Taobao are the same with the eBay.On the other hand, previous researches are mainly about the private value or the public value of goods, very few researches involve the both sides. In this thesis, goods with affiliated value model (such as jade bracelets) are analyzed, focusing on the differences and similarities of its influence factors with private value and public value goods. At present, many scholars just study the bidding strategies without considering their different influences to the final end-price. The thesis discusses the influence of bidding strategies to the end-price of the auction.In this thesis, after Referencing relevant literatures and theories, combined with the characteristics of Taobao's online auction page arranging, the writer provides an online auction model of end-price factors in general, these influence factors are described as follows: the product descriptions, auction property, seller's credit, seller's services and buyer's bidding behaviors. Then build specific variables for these factors, and create 22 hypothetical propositions.Self-developed online data capture tools are used to collect tens of thousands of data and bid records of goods on Taobao.In order to extract the Buyers'bidding behavioral factors, the thesis analyzes the buyers'bidding process and the types of bidding strategies. After dealing with the 3410 price statistics and records through statistic and variance analysis, the result shows that buyers'bidding process are time-bounded, and there are sniping bidding behavior, which is affected by the duration of the auction. K-means clustering is also used in this thesis to identify the five bidding strategies, and then come up with the assumption that sniper tactics is negatively related with end-price and efficiency strategy is positively related with transaction price.Finally, three categories of goods are analyzed by multiple linear regression and partial correlation analysis; validate the overall model of transaction price influence factor is significant. In the end-price factors, the conclusion of auction property is consistent with previous researches, while product descriptions, seller's services, buyer's bidding behavior are factors that had not been found in previous. This study also shows that the price of goods is affected by the starting price, the rate of increase and the total bid numbers, and for different types of goods, each type has their own influence factors.