Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Buyers Save Billions On eBay, Study Finds

by Terrence O'Brien on January 28, 2008 at 01:39 PM

Buyers Save Billions on eBay
Buyers save billions of dollars a year on eBay. You knew that, and you probably didn't need a pair of researchers from the University of Maryland to tell you that, either. But just in case there was any lingering doubt, a pair of statisticians who looked at financial data from 2003 and 2004 came up with the numbers $7 billion and $8.4 billion in consumer savings each of those two years, respectively. If the increase in saving continued increasing in a linear fashion, estimates put the 2007 eBay consumer savings at around $19 billion.

The consumer savings is actually a measure of what researchers call "consumer surplus," the difference between the most a buyer was willing to pay for a product or service and the actual ending price. On eBay winners, pay only the next increment over the second highest bidder, which keeps prices lower than in many other forms of auction.

From ZDNet

Related Links:

Tags: breaking+news, ebay, money, online auctions, OnlineAuctions, savings, shopping, top

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular