There are many advantages that online auctioning has over "real life" auctions, which is one of the reasons why online auctioning is one of the most popular forms of e-commerce to date. One of the reasons for its success is that it enables sellers to promote their goods to an extremely large and diverse range of customers. Instead of just marketing to consumers in the area of a “real life� auction, the market has increased to become global. As a result, more consumers may be interested in buying a particular good, therefore driving up the price value. The large global market can also have the reverse effect on price value, as because there are almost billions of items available in the online auctioning website, it is “common to find overlooked and therefore underpriced items� (Prince in Dysart; 2004; p.68).
Another advantage of auctioning online as opposed to “real life� auctioning is that it is easier to find information and records containing details of the previous history of the seller. This way, if someone has a tendency for selling a product, taking the money, then not sending the item to the buyer, it will be posted on the online auctioning site and people will know to be wary of that buyer. This has resulted in sellers being more cautious and more “eager to please� than in the “real life� auctioning world (Dysart; 2004; p.68).
According to Julie Vallone, of Enterprenuer magazine, many businesses also use online auctioning sites to test their new products. They do this to gauge how popular a product seems to be and what price range they should be using when they introduce it to the retail market (Vallone;2000).
Another advantage of online auctioning is simply the novelty factor that it has as it is still considered a new concept. Many people will be drawn to auction sites such as Ebay just because they have heard about it from some other medium and are curious to see what it is. Many of these people may be drawn in and soon become avid buyers and/or sellers.
REFERENCES
Dysart, J. 2004. For the Initiated, Web Auctions Represent a Significant Opportunity 'The Secured Lender'Jan/Feb 2004, Vol.60, Issue 1,p.68 [online] Retreived from PROQUEST (Accessed 4th August 2004).
Vallone, J. 2000. Going Once...Going Twice...Not A chance. Online Auctioning is here to stay[online] Available from: http://www.entrepenuer.com/article/print0236123263200.html (Accessed 25th October, 2004).
Emily Fraser 09:28, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
