The online auction sites as the name suggests offer business models to participate in auction online. Like traditional auction , in case of online auction also the participants in the process bid for buying or selling of certain products. Various kinds of software are designed particularly for this purpose. The function of the software is to check and regulate all the nitty gritty of the processes involved. Many kinds of auction models are available, but the English model is the most frequently used model used by the online auction sites. According to this model, the bid price of a particular item is kept low in the beginning, but it gradually rises as the bidders go on increasing it.
There are various facilities attached to online auction. The first thing is that the bid can be placed at any day and that to at any time of the day. The products for which the bids are placed ,are generally listed for 1 to 10 days depending on the wish of the seller. The bid is placed for a certain number of days for the products to be noticed by the buyers. Secondly, online bidding can take place irrespective of places to where a buyer or a seller may reside. As the actions take place through the internet, the auction can include from people across all over the world. A huge pool of bidders can be created through online auction. As the number of bidders increase, smelling the chance of making a high profit, more and more sellers will also participate in the process and so on.Thus, it will give rise to a virtuous cycl helping in flourishing the business. In auctions the profit margins are very high.
The online auction sites have also drawn criticisms from certain segments of the society. Actually some malicious element can easily pass of their illegally acquired goods as original through the auction sites. Sometimes incomplete information or wrong information is provided about the products that have been listed to be sold through the online auction process. Other than these the online auction sites are blamed to be using different price for the same product at different points o time or at different sites, this phenomenon affects the small consumers negatively.