A Study on Innovation in Online Art Auction Mechanisms and the Restructuring of Market Structure in the Context of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has driven art auctions from an offline, organization-dominated model toward a platform-based operational structure, resulting in shifts in the allocation of market power and the distribution of transaction opportunities. Focusing on the relationship between mechanism innovation in online auctions and market structure reconstruction, this study constructs an analytical framework integrating mechanism identification and weight measurement. Based on 24 semi-structured interviews, 25 key mechanism elements were extracted through grounded theory. Drawing on 312 valid questionnaires, the KANO model was employed to classify these mechanisms into three categories—must-be, one-dimensional, and attractive attributes. An AHP hierarchical model was subsequently developed to calculate comprehensive weights, with all consistency ratios of the judgment matrices remaining below 0.10. The results indicate that one-dimensional mechanisms occupy a dominant position at the criterion level (0.6370), significantly exceeding must-be mechanisms (0.2583) and attractive mechanisms (0.1047). The comprehensive weight ranking shows that platform authentication, recommended exposure, participation stratification, and preferential treatment of active users exert relatively strong influences, suggesting that the evolution of the online auction market structure is primarily realized through the transfer of trust structures and the redistribution of visibility. Must-be mechanisms constitute the foundational conditions for transaction order and institutional legitimacy, whereas attractive mechanisms mainly function to expand participation boundaries and stimulate market vitality, exerting comparatively limited direct influence on structural stratification. The findings demonstrate that the reconstruction of online auction structures is not a natural extension of price mechanisms, but rather a process of institutional reorganization embedded in platform rules, data records, and algorithmic sorting.