Shilling in Online-Auktionen

Online-Auktionen sind neben anderen Manipulationen insbeson-dere dem sogenannten Shilling ausgesetzt. Dabei bietet ein Ver-käufer unter falscher Identität in einer eigenen Auktion, um da-durch einen Vorteil zu erlangen. Dieser Beitrag schlägt ein neues Verfahren zur Identifikation dieser schwer erkennbaren Manipula-tionsform vor. Die bisher bekannten Ansätze werden um eine stochastische Analyse und das Konzept einer Indizien-Signatur erweitert, um eine höhere Trennschärfe hinsichtlich verschiedener Formen des Shilling zu erzielen. Dieses Verfahren wird anschlie-ßend auf Daten des Online-Auktionshauses eBay angewendet und zeigt die hohe Praxisrelevanz der Shilling-Manipulationen

Sniping in Online-Auktionen

In Online-Auktionen werden Gebote oft gezielt kurz vor Ende der Auktion abgegeben. Diese als Sniping bezeichnete Bietstrategie hat zum Ziel, einen starken Preisanstieg durch wechselseitiges Überbieten zu vermeiden. Obwohl Sniping in Online-Auktionen häufig auftritt, konnten bisherige empirische Untersuchungen keine statistisch gesicherten Preiseffekte nachweisen. Die vorliegende Analyse zeigt die Profitabilität von Sniping anhand einer empirischen Studie und unter-sucht mögliche Wirkungszusammenhänge anhand statistischer Merkmale

Erfolgsfaktoren von Internet-Auktionen: Eine empirische Analyse in PLS

Internet-Auktionen haben sich zu einem der erfolgreichsten Geschäftsmodelle im E-Commerce entwickelt. Die stetig steigende Anzahl von Auktionen beim Marktführer eBay zeugen von einer zunehmenden Beliebtheit solcher Auktionen. Doch welche Determinanten beeinflussen den Erfolg einer Internet-Auktion? Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird dieses Thema aus dem Blickwinkel des Verkäufers am Beispiel von Ticket-Auktionen empirisch untersucht. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei eine Kausalanalyse, die den Einfluss von Ticketinteresse, Verkäuferreputation, Käufererfahrung und Maßnahmen eines Verkäufer-Marketing auf den Auktionserfolg untersucht. Dabei wird insbesondere Wert auf eine messtheoretisch adäquate Berücksichtung von formativen Indikatoren im Rahmen des PLS-Modells gelegt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass vor allem das dem versteigerten Ticket individuell entgegen gebrachte Interesse den größten Einfluss auf den Auktionserfolg ausübt. Darüber hinaus kann der Reputation des Verkäufers sowie der Erfahrung des Käufers jeweils eine negative Wirkung nachgewiesen werden. Dagegen haben eine steigende Anzahl eingestellter Bilder des Auktionsgutes und der im Auktionstitel enthaltenen Produktinformationen einen positiven Einfluss auf den Auktionserfolg. Ein möglichst geringer Startpreis sowie eine geringe Anzahl im Rahmen einer Auktion angebotener Tickets wirken sich ebenfalls positiv auf den Erfolg aus. Einer zunehmenden Anzahl von angebotenen Zahlungs- und Versandmethoden sowie einer langen Auktionsdauer kann die unterstellte positive Wirkung nicht nachgewiesen werden. --

Emergent Behavior and Criticality in Online Auctions

The present work studies eBay online auctions as a complex system, where agents in form of sellers and bidders interact in a large number. In contrast to unintelligent agents of physical systems, humans have the choice between different possible rational strategies. The empirical findings in this work are the result of statistical analysis of two major sets of data with more than 200,000 auctions. Probability distribution functions and relations between different variables are studied. Statistical analysis of the eBay data shows that the probability density functions for a wide range of quantities follow rather simple functionalities like exponential and power laws. Similar power-law distributions were observed in physics when studying the behavior of systems at their critical points, related to second order phase transitions. Although lots of relations and distributions could be understood qualitatively and quantitatively, there exists, up to now, no unifying model, which describes all of the observations. As an application we have found that a kind of fraud known as shill bidding leads to significant deviations from the average behavior. eBay regarded as a complex system seems to have features of totally stochastic processes, irrational agents and fully rational agents altogether

Internet auctions in marketing: The consumer perspective

Internet auctions for consumer are among the most popular and most successful business models in electronic commerce. Research so far, however, has focused on prerequisites and consequences of auctions as a marketing intstrument of suppliers. Even though it is a key success factor from a marketing perspective, the demand side has not inspired similar attention. This paper focuses on the attitudes, motives, and behavior of auction customers. It shows why ccurrent beliefs about bidder characteristics are myths. Taking these misconceptions as a starting point, the existence of an experiential and a pragmatic type of auction customer is proposed. An explorative empirical study looking for the characteristics of both types of auction customers is described. Results indicate that less than half of auction shoppers in the sudy are experiential oriented. Except substantial additional demand concerning technological and emotional qualities of auctions these shoppers do not differ dramatically from pragmatic oriented shoppers. Both types are open-minded towards further development of consumer auctions to commercial marketplaces. Business models of auctioneers and suppliers should concentrate on the basic utility of the auction algorithm by facilitating individual matchmaking instead of pursuing costly additional utility by promoting the entertainment value of auctions. --

Legal Issues in Online Auctions in Germany and the U.S.A.

Because of the multiplicity of commercial operations which are transacted by way of Internet Auction it is unavoidable that some of them end up in front of the court. The number of legal procedures and judicial decisions around Internet Auctions is consequentially increasing, because there is more and more business transacted by way of Internet Auction. These judgments were rendered in various fields of law so that one cannot say that there exists a special "Law of Internet Auctions". In fact there are well known problems in traditional fields of law presented in a new context. In the following this paper will examine these Legal Issues in the context of Internet Auctions and deal with the law of the United States of America and Germany with respect to the question how these countries handle these legal issues. It will afterwards go on with a comparative view as to the legal practices of the two countries, then address the International Civil Procedural Law and lastly close with a final statement

On the usage of theories in the field of Wirtschaftsinformatik : a quantitative literature analysis

The development of theories is a central goal of every scientific discipline. Hence, theory development is also of considerable importance to the field of Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI), which seeks to progress as a scientific discipline. WI is the discipline focussing on research and design of information systems conducted by the German-speaking community. WI has slightly different objectives, focusses on different methods and different desired results compared to the Anglo-American Information Systems (IS) research discipline. Although both disciplines deal with information systems as their main research object, Mertens et al. (2014) propose to consider both disciplines as halfsister disciplines (in German: Halbschwesterdisziplinen). Against the background of the growing importance of theory development in WI, a lot of WI research contributions use and reference existing theories and theoretical models for different purposes, e.g. to derive and test hypotheses or to justify design decisions in the context of information systems’ design and development. Often, these theories originate from related scientific disciplines like economics or psychology. However, as it is still not clear which theories are of particular importance to WI research, this report aims at presenting a detailed analysis of the current usage of theories in WI and addresses the following research questions: Which theories are used in WI research and where do they originate from? and How has the usage of theories developed over time? These questions were examined based on a systematic analysis of a broad amount of scientific literature. Thus, this report is supposed to make a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the theoretical foundations of WI. Our analysis shows that 1,160 WI articles from 2000 to 2011 do, in large part, reference the same theories as Anglo-American Information Systems (IS) research. These findings are discussed and implications are highlighted