The popular Internet marketplace, eBay, introduced the Best Offer format in 2005. This paper studies buyer's behavior under such a mechanism. We characterize this mechanism as a sequential-move game between the seller of an item and its buyers. Our model suggests that a rational buyer's offer...

We empirically investigate the factors which influence a buyer's behavior in making an offer to purchase a car listed on eBay Motors using the “Best Offer” option. Our results indicate that a buyer's first offer is affected by observed information, including the number of buyers making an...

This paper proposes a simple model for multiple second-price auctions which run parallel to each other, in the sense that though they might not begin or end at the same time, they have certain periods of overlap. We characterize the equilibrium bidding strategy of the buyers and the equilibrium...

We use data from eBay Best Offer listings to analyze haggling over prices in transactions with one seller and a series of potential buyers for a limited-supply product. We characterize this transaction mechanism as a sequential-move game to investigate buyer behavior. Our model suggests that a...

In the ascending-price auctions with Yahoo!-type buy-it-now (BIN), we characterize and derive the closed-form solution for the optimal bidding strategy of the bidder and the optimal BIN price of the seller when they are both risk-averse. The seller is shown to be strictly better o with the BIN...