Complementary Features of Reverse Auction Web Sites: A Survey

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to study the features of reverse auction sites. Twenty-five features of 38 reverse auction sites have been studied. The features are divided into core and complementary features. These sites are broadly divided into B2B/B2G and B2C/C2C groups. We show the differences that exist in the site design of these two groups insofar as the inclusion of these features are concerned. We derive weights, signifying the importance which the site designs have assigned to various complementary features. These weights are used in two ways: to provide benchmarks to evaluate the design of the Web sites, and to find out the site evaluation index of any Web site for comparison with the benchmark. Using their complementary features, we derive weights for the features and develop site evaluation indexes for them.