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How to digitally stoke that old-time auction fever

New insights into what makes online auctions exciting, rewarding

Date:
July 28, 2015
Source:
Journal of Retailing at New York University
Summary:
The authors explore the impact of time pressure and social competition on bidders in online auctions and how those factors influence auction results and users' experience.
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Whether online auctions are selling rare Pokemon cards or fine art, the science behind inciting the highest bids gets a boost from a paper to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Retailing. Researchers from Germany and Australia teamed up to explore how bidders' emotions are affected by different types of auctions and how those emotions affect their bidding.

In "Auction Fever! How Time Pressure and Social Competition Affect Bidders' Arousal and Bids in Retail Auctions," the three authors -- Marc T.P. Adam of the University of Newcastle, Professor Jan Krämer of the University of Passau, and Marius B. Müller of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology -- designed experiments to explicitly study the interaction of time pressure and social competition on bidders' excitement level, or arousal, and bids.

The authors demonstrated that auctions where both time pressure and social competition are intense lead to so-called auction fever and higher bids. The catch is that the competition has to be other people, not computer-generated. "Arousal needs a focus in order to culminate in auction fever, and this focus stems from the social competition of bidding against human opponents," they write.

Further, in comparing ascending auctions, where the bidders drop out as the clock and price advance, with descending auctions, where the winning bid is made as the price drops, the authors found that participants' experience in ascending auctions was more rewarding for them.

In an increasingly crowded online market for auctions, auctioneers who want to create a more exciting shopping experience for consumers and higher revenues for their sites are advised to focus on ascending auction formats that highlight the presence of other human bidders.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Journal of Retailing at New York University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Marc T.P. Adam, Jan Krämer, Marius B. Müller. Auction Fever! How Time Pressure and Social Competition Affect Bidders’ Arousal and Bids in Retail Auctions. Journal of Retailing, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2015.01.003

Cite This Page:

Journal of Retailing at New York University. "How to digitally stoke that old-time auction fever." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 July 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150728162404.htm>.
Journal of Retailing at New York University. (2015, July 28). How to digitally stoke that old-time auction fever. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150728162404.htm
Journal of Retailing at New York University. "How to digitally stoke that old-time auction fever." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150728162404.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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