Bid increments
 

How do auction houses come up with their bid increments? Last night, I was interested in a card in the Leland's auction, which was at $76 (before juice and shipping). The next increment was $101, and when including the juice, the final price would have been above what I was willing the pay for it. However, at say $89, splitting the difference, I would have placed a bid.
Seems to me the bid increments, in some cases, may dissuade bidders.

Some of Saco Rivers bid increments are awful too. That's why a lot of their bids end at $100. Next increment is $125. I'm not even a fan of 10% bid increments on Heritage or REA. Making those 3-5% would increase the numbers of bids and likely the competitive drive of the bidders to win the item.
Seems to be widespread, however, so there must be some "industry knowledge" or historical document that people believe it works.

High opening bids, excessive bid increments particularly at lower levels and not including buyer's premium in the viewable bidding history all seem to work against the auction house and hence the consignor's desire to maximize the number of bidders, and therefore increase competition between bidders to obtain the highest possible selling price.

But what do I know????

+ 1, or whatever increment is specified

i just double-checked. neither Heritage or REA have 10 percent increments.

Ok, was going off the top of my head. Guess they agree with me. ;-) Appreciate the correction.

This is copied from the heritage website. I don't see anything I'd change if I were designing bid increments for an auction site.

Current Bid Bid Increment
< $10 $1
$10 - $49 $2
$50 - $99 $5
$100 - $199 $10
$200 - $499 $20
$500 - $999 $50
$1,000 - $1,999 $100
$2,000 - $4,999 $200
$5,000 - $9,999 $500
$10,000 - $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 - $49,999 $2,000
$50,000 - $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 - $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 - $499,999 $20,000
$500,000 - $999,999 $25,000
$1,000,000 - $1,999,999 $50,000
$2,000,000 - $9,999,999 $100,000
>= $10,000,000 $200,000

100% agree. beyond stupid. Certainly losing me on lots of auctions.

I buy most of my stuff on e-bay, but saw something I liked at one of the big auctions houses. Current bid was $5,000. Bid tab only let me put in $5,500 and select "up-to" bid. i actually wanted to bid at $5,700, but the bid software wouldn't let me. It was either $5,500 or $6,050 becasue of the increments

So I clicked on $5,500, which would force the next bidder to $6,050, and with the 20% buyers fee, would put them over the value of the item. Still with me?

so my bid goes in and the price goes to $5,240 and i'm current high bidder. Good, I've got some room for the shillers. Go back to my day job as I don't have time for the idoitic mulitple closing of the auction. Check in for the final price and it sales for $5,650.00. Wait a minute. WTF? How could another bidder only be 2% over my high bid. I had to put in 10% increments but someone else gets 2%?

I'm done with this BS. You essentially need two accounts to find the sweet spot for bid values. Or get a degree in bid increment analytics. This is a enjoyable hobby for me, not school. Can't wait for most of these AH's to be put to rest by PWCC.

That sounds like Clean Sweep. They topped your ceiling (which was not known at the time). If they do that, the increment can be whatever. If the ceiling is KNOWN, then the next increment is 10%.

This makes sense for increments. I might have landed the card in Leland's if they used this.

+1

The key to winning an item is to pay more than anyone else. Increments have never bothered me too much. I bid what I want within the specified ranges. If I don't win it wasn't meant to be. I don't know if lower increments would help or hurt.

The two trains of though in the auction world are:

1. Lower increments encourage more bidders to participate and also make it less painful to extend one's self above what was originally planned.

2. Higher bid increments net bigger totals because if you want it at the end you are going to have to pay the bigger jump.

I lean towards #1 personally.

Heritage does appear to have 10% bid increments based on the bidding table posted by AGuiness. From $50 up it is 10% of the bid on the low end of the bid level and 5% on the high end. As an example: In the $50 to $99 bid level the increment is $5.00. That is 10% of $50.00 and 5.05% of $99.00. This holds true for every bid level up to $9,999,999.00

true. and a broken clock is right twice a day. of course there are going to be SOME increments that are 10%. what was stated is that ALL increments are 10% which is not accurate.

I don't deserve credit for posting that table, as I was quoting pokerplyr80... :)

My statement was that Heritage DOES have 10% bid increments which refutes your earlier post:

Originally Posted by RedsFan1941 View Post
i just double-checked. neither Heritage or REA have 10 percent increments.

It does not matter if they have lower bid increments. At every bid level the starting bid increment is 10% which you stated was not true.

I've been thinking about increments (because I have to have SOMETHING to think about, right?) and I'm wondering if higher bid increments also may contribute to more early bidding. I'm very inexperienced in the AH world, but if I had really been on my game for the Leland's auction, I would have put in an early autobid up to the $76 level to "claim" that bid first. Since the increments in this case seemed to have dissuaded any bidding above that level, it would pay to be the first in the door at that level. This only works if the increments remain consistent for all bidders (which based on others posting in this thread, isn't always the case).

Certainly a case to be made for this as point #3.

I don't know how much credit I deserve for copying and pasting a table but I'll take it.

I like the bid increments at places like Leland's. If you get in early enough, you can basically 'perch' on the level right at the edge and get cards for less than they're really worth.

Conversely, the bid increment rules at Leland's, Goldin, etc are why I will never list lower valued cards with them...you simply cannot get the best value for your cards with them. Cards in the $100-$300 price range go to ebay BIN/BO or straight to PWCC/Probstein.

Probably doesn't make sense on the AH side to do real small increments. However, definitely something to consider if I were them.

Lower increments make it easier for you to bid. It also makes it just as easy for the next bidder to get in and top you.

Higher increments make it tougher for you to place the next bid, but if you get it in the next increment might knock out everyone who is left. So which is better?

I think Sirius auctions does a good job of striking a balance.

I know, Barry. That was exactly my thought. Maybe taking a higher spot will leave some folks out. That happens especially on less scarce stuff. On scarce/rare stuff ya' just go all in :).

This threads raises an issue which probably means nothing to big auction houses. Most don’t want low value items and only take them as a curtesy if the consignor also has high value items.

A certain auction house which shall remain nameless (unless they want to name themselves) has actually been passing some of these smaller consignors on to me instead of selling their entire collections as one lot. Sometimes small and nimble (and hungry) has it's advantages!

BTW my specific contribution to the increment discussion:

Current Bid.............................Increment
$1 -$10.................................. $1
$11 - $50................................$2.50
$51 - $100 .............................$5.00
$101 - $250............................$10.00
$251 - $1000..........................$25.00
$1001 - $2500........................$50.00
$2501+ ..................................$100.00

So on cheaper items I am 10% (or in two instances higher, but really how many items are selling under $10?) at the bottom of the range, but more often significantly below 10%