CS155a E Commerce Lecture 15 October 30 2001 C2C Commerce eBay and Auctions eBay Overview World s largest online trading community Current number of users Approx 30M 2M end of 1998 12M middle of 2000 Offers a global marketplace for individuals worldwide to buy and sell from one another eBay History 1995 Founded by Pierre Omidyar on Labor Day 1998 IPO in September at 18 share 2000 All time high stock price of 127 share in March Value of goods traded on eBay in 2000 is over 5B Current Stock price 51 70 10 29 2001 Earnings share 0 31 P E ratio 190 eBay Stock Price EBAY eBay Quarterly Revenues eBay Business Model Sellers pay small fee 2 per listed item eBay takes a cut 2 5 of each sale Sellers are willing to pay this fee because it s a very small price to pay compared to the global exposure they get Although the percentage earned on any given item is small this is profitable for eBay precisely because the market is global over 500 000 new items are added to the site everyday Business Model continued Buyers and sellers handle exchange and payment eBay has no inventory no transportation no costs at all except website operation Conventional wisdom Service is technically commoditizable but strong network effects favor eBay Market Characteristics eBay was rather unique at its inception in 1995 but many alternatives exist today including www epier com www ubid com and recently www amazon com eBay s original dominance causes a network effect and perpetuates its continued dominance 1 Sellers want to sell their item on the auction service with the most buyers so they put their items up for sale on eBay 2 Buyers want to find the best prices with many sellers so they go to eBay 3 Because of 1 and 2 eBay is even bigger than it was before Repeat from 1 eBay Branches Out Acquired Half com a fixed price online marketplace in July 2000 Identical to eBay in all respects except that prices are fixed It has since grown tremendously and is doing very well listing over 100 million items today Sale of distressed inventory from tech companies Good way for companies to recover costs from older and or excess equipment The most prominent example is IBM which has its own store http www ebaystores com ibm Auction of art and or luxury goods known as eBay Premier http pages gc ebay com Fine works of art regularly list for tens of thousands of dollars To provide the level of trust necessary for such large sums eBay only allows established reputable auction houses such as Butterfields to sell items here Other New Developments Buy It Now The seller can specify a price at which s he would be willing to sell the item to any buyer who meets that price This gives buyers the option of buying the item instantly for a known price without waiting for the auction to end This option is currently free as an introductory promotion but it will eventually cost an additional fee New Developments continued Exodus the internet connectivity provider responsible for many top companies servers including eBay Yahoo and MSNBC just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy While MSNBC will stick with Exodus Yahoo and eBay are lodging with a number of different hosters Technical Foundations of Internet C2C Commerce Market Design e g Auction Types Payment Systems can t always use credit cards E Market Operations Website Design Issues e g UI System Reliability and Availability Massive Scale Commercial Website Operation eBay scale Approximately 30M users Over 500K items added each day Massive strain on website reliability and availability Major issue for high traffic B2C sites too June 1999 Three eBay Crashes eBay service unavailable for prolonged periods of time Revenue loss estimates 3M to 5M Stock price fall 20 Blamed on ISP router failure and SUN OS memory bugs eBay started outsourcing using Exodus before its bankruptcy Auction Types Ascending bid structure Descending bid structure First price sealed bid Second price sealed bid Vickrey Highest bidder gets item Pays second highest bid price Advantages Strategyproof user friendly Auction Design in C2C Commerce Why Auctions Hard for typical C2C seller to do market research and set optimal fixed price Auctions allow seller to maximize revenue eBay ascending bid auctions include Starting Price Ending Time Bid Increment Sometimes reservation price Proxy bidding agents eBay Ascending Bid Auctions continued Technically equivalent to 2nd price Vickrey Importance of strategyproofness Buyers like sellers will have little or no information about others valuations of the items so dominant strategy solution concept is appropriate Truth telling is a dominant strategy helps sellers maximize revenue Seller can choose to use a descending bid structure Dutch Auction Auctions for UnlimitedSupply Digital Goods Optimal Fixed Pricing OFP No truthful auction even multi price can beat OFP revenue Competitive OFP revenue No truthful deterministic auction is competitive There exists truthful randomized auctions that are competitive Goldberg Hartline Wright 99 Sale of Monroe Photos and Release From February 22 2001 WSJ Auctioneer eBay Premier and Butterfields of SF eBay acquired Butterfields in 1999 Seller Tom Kelley Studios of Ventura CA Item Five outtakes of Marilyn Monroe s 1949 Red Velvet photo shoot and the negatives and the model s release form Expected price 700K to 1M Implications for Internet Based Business Intellectual Property Rights Questions Inescapable Butterfield s auction catalog Right to use name and likeness for trade and advertising purposes CMG Worldwide which represents Monroe estate Will go after anyone who uses those images in a commercial fashion Potential limits to eBay scope Previous sales of high end photos prints and art have fallen flat Can eBay be more than a hugely successful online flea market Homework Reading for 11 1 Lochner in Cyberspace The New Economic Orthodoxy of Rights Management Julie Cohen originally published in the Michigan Law Review 1998 without footnotes Assignment for 11 6 The third written homework assignment is due in class on November 6
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