The Economics of Queues and Waiting
Digital Queues: Waiting Rooms and Ticket Drops
Online sales of concert tickets or limited products use virtual queues, bots and lotteries to manage huge demand.
Queues moved online.
Virtual waiting rooms
Websites place users in an online line when traffic surges.
Bots
Automated programs buy up tickets, prompting countermeasures.
Scalpers
Resellers buy tickets and sell them at higher prices.
Dynamic pricing
Some sellers raise prices when demand is high, replacing waiting with money.
A concert launch
Fans wait in a virtual queue as tickets sell out in minutes.
Believing online sales are always fair
Bots and resellers can distort them.
Key takeaways
- Virtual queues manage traffic.
- Bots are a problem.
- Scalpers resell at a premium.
- Dynamic pricing uses money.
No recording for this one yet - EconReader can read it aloud for you.