Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards
I think people vastly overestimate the "advantage" a situation like this brings to the auction company. For every person who decides to throw a few bids they might not have (which really doesn't make much sense) there are several who might have still been interested in bidding yesterday who are pissed and won't bid today.
But let's spitball and make up a number. Let's say this adds something crazy like $250k in bids that they WOULDN'T have gotten yesterday. That would likely add about $62,500 to REA's bottom line. Does anyone REALLY think this hassle, bad publicity, pissed off buyers AND consignors (consignors like things to go as planned, period) and aggravation is worth $62,500 to REA?
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I am not saying the entire "situation" is an advantage to the AH. What I am saying is, to use your numbers:
1. Server crashed. Accident that is a bummer for everyone.
2. Auction SHOULD resume the next evening from the point where it crashed, in other words, as lots are going into individual 10 minute rule.
3. REA instead opens up the auction all day today and puts that estimated $62,500 in their pocket, and lots of smiles on the faces of their consigners.
So, in your scenario, my issue is with that marginal $62.5k garnered by adding another day to the auction needlessly.
To be clear, I honestly believe REA would've rather had the servers stay up and things work as expected. But when they didn't, there was no valid excuse to pad the bidding time by an extra day.