1.     American Tourister Luggage

Legend#1

Size: # of Bids

Color: Bids per person

(red: highest number of bids

 yellow/orange: medium number of bids

 black: 1 bid per person)

Analysis

There is no correlation between the size of a bid and the number of bids per person.  However, it seems like the bigger is a bid, the lower is the bid per person.  May be for bidders are less likely to negotiate when it comes to expensive items.  They know their desired price, they posted and they stick to it.  One could assume for instance that a higher is a bid and the lower

Legend#2

Size: # of Bids

Color: Bidders

(Green: highest number of bidders

black: 2 bidders – Min.)

Analysis

As we could expect, the more bidders you have the more bids you have

2.     Bausch Laumb Microsocope

Data Set Info

Number of rows: 2058

Number of nodes (~ rows) shown: 2058

Product auctioned: Bausch Laumb Microscope                                             

Legend #1:

–        Size: Seller Experience

o       The bigger is the unit square, the higher is the seller’s experience.

–        Color: Bidder experience

o       Dark Green: lowest start bid

o       Green: low start bid

o       Red: bid higher than 14 but lower than 36

o       Pink: bid higher than 36

Analysis

More experienced bidders (largest squares) tend to start their bid process with low bid for this product.  Is it because more experienced bidders shop for the best deals only?  Or do they strategically set the opening bid low “to manage” speculative behavior?

Legend #2:

–        Size: Seller Experience

o       The bigger is the unit square, the higher is the seller’s experience.

–        Color: Seller’s final bid

o       Dark Green: lowest start bid

o       Green: low start bid

o       Yellow/Red: high bid

Analysis

Ultimately, there is no correlation between the seller experience (square size) and its final bid.  May be it just boils down to the willingness to own the item.

Legend #3:

–        Size: Startbid

o       The bigger is the unit square, the higher is the starting bid.

–        Color: Bidder experience

o       Gray: No previous bidding experience

o       Green: About 400 bids done in Ebay

o       Yellow: About 800 bids done in Ebay

o       Red: About 1200 bids done in Ebay                                                        

o       Pink: About 1600 bids done in Ebay

                                                                                                                               X2

                                                                           X1                                                                  X3

Analysis

The data has been divided in 3 groups based on the bidder experience: bidders with less than 150 bids (x1), bidders with 150 to 260 bids (x2), and bidders with more than 260 bids (x3)

It seems like more experienced bidders enter the bid with higher starting bid on average.  It is almost as if they wait for the right time or bid “to play the game”.  X1 shows that the majority of inexperienced bidders start with a small bid.

Legend #4:

–        Size: Bidder Experience

o       The bigger is the unit square, the more experienced is the bidder.

–        Color: # of bids for the product wanted.

o       Black: About 2 bids placed

o       Green: About 15 bids placed

o       Yellow: About 29 placed

o       Red: About 42 placed

Analysis

The data has been divided in 3 groups based on the bidder experience: bidders with less than 150 bids (x1), bidders with 150 to 260 bids (x2), and bidders with more than 260 bids (x3).  It seems that is no correlation between the number of bids and the bidder experience. The size of the squares do not drive any particular color.

Legend #5:

–        Size: # of bids for the product wanted.

o       The bigger is the unit square, the more bids have been placed by the bidder.

–        Color: # of bids per person for the product wanted.

o       Black: About 1 bids placed

o       Green: About 15 bids placed

Analysis

As with the American Tourister product, there is no correlation between the size of a bid and the number of bids per person.  This is in line with rational expectations.

Conclusion

Prior to the analysis with Treemap, I had several pre-conceived ideas about the psychological and behavioral aspects of online buyers participating to auctions.  For instance, I thought that more experienced bidders will place their bids mostly at the end of the buyer bidding time with higher bid to maximize their chance to win the bid.  The analysis has shown that this is not the case.  Actually, more experienced bidders start the bid process with low bids when it comes to the American Tourister Luggage, may be shopping for bargains.

Treemap is a friendly tool that allow its users to quickly unravel patterns in large data sets.