It is especially useful for people who have time to wait for an item but are highly price-sensitive. Any believer in Adam Smith's ideas must welcome this kaleidoscope of different trading models. In some ways, the notion of fixed prices is itself relatively recent. Now the Internet seems to be creating the possibility of a permanent worldwide bazaar in which no prices are ever fixed for long, all information is instantly available, and buyers and sellers spend their lives haggling to try to get the best deals. Of course it will not happen like this.
Auctions are better suited to some items than to others.
A shopper anxious to get through the weekly grocery list will have little appetite for bargaining over every item. Yet despite these reservations, the new pricing models will not disappear. And as consumers get used to auctions as a way of buying travel or computers, say, they may be readier to try them out for other goods and services, such as buying and selling property or catering for a party. John Hagel's infomediaries and Philip Evans's navigators around the web act as agents for the consumer. The best Internet portals, aggregators and auction-sites will have to do this too.