Using data collected between August 1999 and January 2000 covering 399 books, including New York Times bestsellers, computer bestsellers, and random books, we examine pricing by thirty-two online bookstores. One common prediction is that the reduction in search costs on the Internet relative to...

A primary tool that consumers have for comparative shopping is the shopbot, which is short for shopping robot. These shopbots automatically search a large number of vendors for price and availability. Typically a shopbot searches a predefined set of vendors and reports all results, which can...