A study of online auction sites in Taiwan: product, auction rule, and trading type

As the Internet grows rapidly. traditional transaction mechanisms like auctions have been imported to the online world. This study focuses on online auction sites in Taiwan, investigating products, auction rules, and trading types adopted by these sites. Based on the three layers of value creation in the Rayport-Sviokla model, results from the 25 sites show that brand-new products are offered more than used ones, and easily describable products are more popular. For auction types. English is the most common one. On the other hand, consumer- to-consumer (C-to-C) trading types are more popular than business-to-consumer (B-to-C) counterparts. Also, most auction site owner's act as intermediaries only. With respect to product delivery, participants usually have to manage the delivery process themselves. The cross-analyses between trading types and product types and between roles of site owners and number of product categories provided are also conducted. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science.