Reference no: EM133312961
Case Study: Like many college students, Laura likes jewelry and she has found a new way to shop for it from her dorm room-online auctions, especially eBay. In checking eBay's listings recently, she found the following: "8" 14 kt gold plated bracelet-gold plated with 20mils of 14kt gold. That's very thick as most chains have only 2-3 mils of gold plating. Chains are not easy to find with this much gold, but they are sold in higher end stores for $49.95 or more. The chain is a 6 mm flat link style and is heavy--not a cheap lite weight." That sounded good, so she looked at the starting price--$9.95-and how many people had bid on the bracelet--0. There were over 5 days left on the auction. "Hm-m-m," she thought. "It's certainly cheap enough and the description sounds good. Let's see the picture." When she scrolled to the picture, she thought the bracelet looked very much like one that a girl on her hall owned and which she he had often admired.
Even though, it seemed like a good deal, Laura was concerned that no one had bid on it. "Maybe not many people have looked at it" she argued with herself. "It's not been on auction very long." When she checked the counter, however, she found that 37 people had viewed this auction. "I wonder if there's something else wrong," she mused. "Maybe it's the seller." When she checked the seller's feedback, she found that the seller had received 11 positive comments in the last 7 days, 26 in the last month and 110 in the last 6 months. There were, however, 3 neutral comments in the last 6 months and 1 negative. "Well, this seller seems to be doing better as there are no negative or neutral comments in the last month," thought Laura. "Because it's only $9.95, I might as well bid and see what happens. If the price gets too high, I can always drop out."
Five days later, there are 5 hours until the auction ends and Laura is back on eBay, looking at the bracelet. There have been 3 bids (other than Laura's) and the price is now $19.59. Laura can't decide if she should bid again. While the bracelet is still well below the store price of $49.95 (suggested by the seller), Laura wonders why so few people have bid on the bracelet. Is there something wrong with it that she can't see? Or will she get a really good deal if she gets it for less than $30?
Welcome to the world of "dynamic pricing" brought to you by eBay, the premier online auction company. Started by Pierre Omidyar to help his girlfriend sell her Pez dispenser collection, eBay has mushroomed to over 2 million items on sale daily and expected sales of $3 billion in 1999. That's up from $746 million in 1998 illustrating the explosive growth available on the internet. eBay has 3.8 million registered users and its members are intensely loyal. They spend an average of 130 minutes a month on the site-double that of any other Web site.
Question: What level of decision making is Laura's experience on eBay? Explain in detail