E-commerce Environment, Development Of Online Auctions

The development of computer technology and the Internet makes it possible that people can take electronic transactions by Internet widely. And the boom of the global E-Business creates new commercial patterns and opportunities. Therefore, the online auction has become an important way of commodity transaction.Based on the theories and experiences of the traditional auction, the online auction inherits the features of the traditional bidding and carries out a series of actions from the collection of the objects for auction, the presentation, the bidding to the electronic payment by internet.The writer searched the bibliotheca of the Shanghai Library and searched the commercial database of the OCLC through the special account number by means of superior searching and expert searching etc. The result shows that none of the Chinese monograph and few of the English about online auction are available. Moreover, few of the articles about auction are available in the magazines from 1999 to June 2001. Furthermore, the result gained through the online searching engine shows though a lot of articles about auction exist, they lay more stress on some issues of online auction than theories of it. This is due to the main objection of the auction sites and the company to gain profits. So little attention is paid to the auction theory in consequence of none material wealth gained in a short run. But from a long-run point of view, the professional theory can provide a wide scope to propel the development of auction. Therefore, this thesis researches issues of the online auction within a background of E-Business from all aspects in detail.The writer consults the experts in this field to make out some specialty questions of auction, she gets to know the practical operation of the auction websites and traditional auction through the on-the-spot survey and online practice. And through charts and data, the writer analyzes the auction websites at home and abroad by comparing online auction and traditional auction to summarize features of online auction. Above all, this thesis analyze the operation of some important websites such as the largest profitable websites eBay, the Sotheby's.com set up by the largest auction company, the Eachnet.com and the Dovebid.com.The author strives for a complete analysis of the points of interest, and a clear presentation of her opinions and arguments by means of comparison, statistics, logic, tables, and flow charts. The thesis is divided into five parts:The first chapter lay stress on the technological factors, economic factors, the theory base and the necessity of the online auction.The second chapter briefs on the rise, evolution and the present state of online auction and categorizes the activities of online auction.The third chapter analyzes online auction generally from aspects of the conditions of online auction, the object for auction, the contract, the auctioneer, and the procedure of auction to set base for the following assaying.The forth chapter analyzes some problems existing in the online auction and set forth countermeasures to solve these problems.The fifth chapter researches the profitability model of the auction websites and raises the business strategies and the ways of the integration of the online auction and the traditional auction.This thesis undertakes a comprehensive research referring to the online auction to provide advice and experience as much as possible for the online auction at home. Furthermore, the writer set forth countermeasures to the problems existing in the online auction from the perfection of law, the construction of the websites, the measures taken by the government to the self-protection of the users.Referring to the questions of how the websites develop continually and gain profit, the writer sets forth some business strategies such as the market localization, usage of the new IT, reinforcement of the management of the user's information, provision of personal service, creation of the image of the trademarks and expansion of...