Time preference doesn't explain high price variance on
simultaneously-conducted auctions with identical promised shipping dates.
On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Ananda Gupta wrote:
> Additionally, Sony has said that they plan to produce 100,000 PS2's per
> week for every week after the launch week, and ship them with the same
> MSRP, so clearly these $1000+ bidders are very time sensitive, irrational,
> or live outside the U.S. and Japan.
>
> Ananda
>
> At 04:10 PM 10/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >A quick look on ebay shows basically-identical Playstation 2 units selling
> >with high variance in prices. For example, a unit sold at 7:58 this
> >morning for $960, to which $25 would be added for overnight
> >delivery. Another unit sold for $1325 at 7:41 this morning with free
> >overnight delivery. Same unit. Another sold for $315 that morning at
> >5:44 am. $20 shipping was to be added for that unit.
> >
> >Some interesting questions come out of this....
> >
> >1) Why didn't Sony just put some kind of special stamp on the first
> >100,000 units, designating them as "first units" and selling them for $800
> >or whatever it figured the market clearing price would be, then selling
> >subsequent standard units for the $300? Avoiding antitrust action of some
> >kind? Protecting consumer loyalty? What?
> >
> >2) Why aren't auction participants spending 5 minutes of searching to save
> >hundreds of dollars? Search costs are quite low on ebay....
> >
> >On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Chris Auld wrote:
> >
> > > And now for something completely different: Playstation 2 was introduced
> > > today, with a retail price of $300 and "only" 500,000 units available.
> > > They're selling on Ebay for over $1,500. Sure wish I'd pre-ordered a
> > > thousand or so....
> > >
> > >
> > > Chris Auld (403)220-4098
> > > Economics, University of Calgary <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Calgary, Alberta, Canada <URL:http://jerry.ss.ucalgary.ca/>
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
