Mr. Lewis said he believed Merrill Lynch was "more likely than not" to survive the current turmoil and that he did not want to wait to make a discount bid and risk losing the opportunity to buy the wealth management giant.
Mercata.com, its Web site where consumers can team up to buy specially advertised products at a discount and bid on products to make the price cheaper, will accept orders until Jan . 31and returns if they are postmarked by Jan . 20 said Rosanne Marks, a spokeswoman.
However, bidders can also strategically take advantage of this flexibility, by discounting package bids and "inflating" bid prices for single items, even in the absence of cost synergies; the latter behavior can hurt the performance of the auction.
Interestingly, while in most settings volume discount bids can lead to significant cost savings, some types of volume discount bids can be worse than split-award auctions in simple settings.
However, we also found evidence that firms can take advantage of this flexibility by discounting package bids for strategic reasons and not driven by cost synergies.
Earlier this month EE announced a promotional discount in a bid to sign up new users — perhaps indicating that signs ups have not been as plentiful as it would like.
One rumor says that Salesforce customers may get a discount on Adwords if they bid through Salesforce's software.
Atlantic Coast said on Monday that it would proceed with plans to become a discount airline while considering Mesa's bid.
This week, reports that E*Trade, a discount broker, had made an unsolicited bid for Ameritrade, a rival, set off a trading frenzy.
Travelers can also continue to use the company's "name-your-own" price offering, in which consumers bid on discounted travel without being told which airline, flight times or hotels they booked until the bid is accepted.
