Your call: eBay and demand for the iPhone 4

Michael Waterson and Chris Doyle

No 270777, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: The iPhone 4 was introduced into the UK market on 24th June 2010 to significant consumer interest. This clearly exceeded supply through conventional channels, since there was very extensive activity in terms of bidding on eBay auctions for the product. We monitored all eBay transactions on the iPhone 4 for six weeks from introduction, with total transactions amounting to around £1.5m. We analyse determinants of the winning bid in terms of characteristics of the phone, the seller and the buyer. Our most notable and novel finding relative to previous studies is a very significant premium over list price being paid in almost all cases, with positive uplift factors including whether the phone was unlocked and whether it could be sold overseas. Demand fell over time, as evidenced by lower achieved prices, but the fall in price was relatively modest. A significant premium of 32GB over 16GB versions is revealed.

Keywords: Financial; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270777/files/twerp_949.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270777/files/twerp_949.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Your call: eBay and demand for the iPhone 4 (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:270777

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.270777

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search (aesearch@umn.edu).