Online Auctions
Consumers saved $7 billion by shopping on eBay in 2003, according to a study by Wolfgang Jank and Galit Shmueli (”New Research Finds Consumers Save More Than $7B by Shopping on eBay“).
The researchers measured the money shoppers were willing to pay for a product versus what they actually paid. On average, users paid $4 less, the study found.
Given the huge number of auctions on the site, the savings added up into the billions of dollars.
The researchers used data from a sniping service, Cniper.com, operated by Ravi Bapna.
Sniping services are used by shoppers to help them automatically place bids in an auction during its final seconds. Shoppers set the maximum price they are willing to pay and the technology does the rest.
The researchers found in the 4,500 auctions they examined that users frequently won items before reaching their maximum bid.
“The more you spend on eBay, the more you save,” by Verne Kopytoff