Way to go REA!!
 

REA has announced a revision to how it ends its auction. Now, extended bidding will start in the day until midnight, after which each lot will stay open so long as it does not get a bid for 5 minutes. See a better description in link below. I guess we will have to see how this plays out in practice, but I think it is a great move. Thank you Brian and REA!

https://www.robertedwardauctions.com...r-february-20/

They stole my closing format!

Kidding, but we did lot by lot closing from day 1. I just think it makes the most sense for everyone. As a buyer, no waiting for your item that hasn't had a bid for 5 hours, but no consignor missing out on bids due to an "arbitrary" closing time. I think it's a great idea... obviously. :)

It took years, but AH's are coming around to the startling realization than 50, 60, and 70 year old men don't stay up to 4 am in the morning to bid on auctions. Hard to believe but it's actually true.

Great move REA.

Does this change guarantee that the auction will extend until at least midnight, or might it close earlier?

The way I read it....
 

is the 5 minute clock STARTS at midnight! Trying to sell it as "their pioneered closing method", but some variation on this has been used before (see Scotts post above for 1 example). So in theory, certain lots could close at 5AM!

What is the incentive on the last day to bid before midnight if you already have a bid on the lot?

There really isn't any. That's the one part that confused me. Why bother calling anything extended bidding until you get to the 5 minute close deadline. All you're doing is shutting people out earlier. Not sure what the upside of that is.

I do not understand what the purpose of the extended bidding period is either. I kind of like the way that Heritage does it. No extended bidding. The auction just goes straight into the 30 minute rule for each individual lot. I do not see why REA does not go straight to the 5 minute rule.

Why not have an auction that is done by professional auctioneers such as Invaluable.com? Lots auctioned off in order throughout the day. All eyes together that wish to see any lot being auctioned or want to bid may do so during that same minute. No anxiety. The best.

I like this change. I did not care for REA’s other method for closing-there were too many unknowns and problematic scenarios that were presented. I applaud REA and Brian for making the adjustment, and also for listening to feedback.

Agreed, definitely the most exciting way to close for bidders. I enjoy these auctions the most. Just make sure it's a weekend for optimal consignor results.

I am a licensed and bonded auctioneer. A member of my state's auctioneers association who also teaches at one of the three accredited auctioneer programs in the state. Is that professional enough for you?

Invaluable is one tool, used often for live simulcast auctions and completely unfeasible for large auctions. When I do live auctions I am fairly fast and do a little over 100 lots an hour. To do even 1000 lots in simulcast (which is slower than live only) would take at LEAST 10 hours with no way of perfectly predicting when any given lot would come up. Now imagine a 3000 or 4000 lot auction?

Many "professional" auctioneers use services like Proxibid or HiBid which, with some small differences, run similarly to the major auction houses independent sites.

I really like the live format. But it sucks during the week for those who have a rigid work schedule and can’t follow along. And a great point that it would take a LONG time for 3000 lots to be auctioned live. Probably not practical.
The hard close at midnight is brutal. I have gotten sniped as many have I am sure with 3 seconds left and no more chances.
I applaud REA for trying to switch things up.

If they closed at 0600, I would be all over it.

I have no major beef with hotly contested lots staying open for hours. What's frustrating and infuriating is when there is no action and you are the winning bidder at midnight, one am, two am, three am, four am . . . and then a bid comes in at 5:15 am topping yours, and you have been winning the item for weeks.

(Whatever happened to the term beef being used to denote a complaint or problem. Haven't heard it in years.)

I like how Hunts closes. Live auction going one twice etc. If you want desperately to win something you will have your shot and no get sniped. Someone bids and a few minutes is reset.

I agree completely and their new system addresses this problem.

Yes... Where's the Beef?

A bunch of these everyday sayings are fading into oblivion as we speak. Millennials seem confused and just give you an empty look when you routinely drop one of these sayings. Many of these terms won't be around much longer. I used the term "floosy" to describe a shallow/loose woman the other day and by the response, you'd think I was speaking a foreign language.

BTW, I also like the REA change and think it was necessary. Far better closing method for consignors, especially.

Maybe there are some terms that should go away.

You're a real stick in the mud.

Steve... You must be no spring chicken, just to know that term. :rolleyes:

Lots of Sad Sacks here on the board. They should take a hike

I see 2 points here
 

1 - Most seem to be in favor of the lot by lot close rule - which is not new to the auction world, but a system that REA is now adopting. I agree this is definitely in the best interests of consignors and am a bit sad because I have sniped a number of items quite successfully in the past.

2 - Confusion about why there is an "extended bidding period" between 6PM and 12AM when bidding will no longer end at 12. If you are using a 5 minute lot by lot end, then an "extended bidding period" preceding it is silly. As mentioned earlier in the thread - if bidding will not end at the end of the "extended bidding period", there is no incentive to bid during it. I strongly suspect this will change soon - pick whatever soft closing time you want and then the 5 minute clocks start.

Last night was the first time I seriously participated in an auction by Clean Sweep (won a 1907 Detroit-Cobb PC and a signed Walter Payton helmet). They have an interesting way of closing auctions. It’s a bit confusing, but I think it works as follows:

All bids must be placed by 6pm. Extended bidding starts at 11pm (not sure why the 6pm rule) and all lots stay open until no lot gets a bid for 15 minutes. Pretty standard so far, but here is the catch - the buyers premium increases by 5% for any bid after 1:30am and by 10% for any bid after 2:30pm. The extra BP does not apply to max bids placed before 1:30.

So, they leave the auction open on a wholesale basis, but charge extra for bids placed after certain times. I kind of like that. Thoughts?

Agreed. If these crazy ways of closing auctions in the middle of the night made sense Christies would be using them for art work worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Their consignors would be demanding it.

Just have a freaking live auction.

1st thought is it's a money grab for the AH. I understand the idea is to negatively incentivize people to place ceiling bids before 1:30, but I would just strategize differently factoring in the extra % if I was placing later bids accordingly - with the consignor potentially getting less and the AH more.

Why don't they just start closing them at a more reasonable time like 10:00.....the older I get staying up until midnight plus is not helping out the bidding public IMO

Looking for opinions, here's mine: Extending bidding starts at 11pm EST and 8pm on the West Coast. If you haven't placed a bid on an item before this time, you can't bid after this time. The remaining bidders can bid on items they previously bid on. All items closing individually if a bid is not received on that item for 5 mins. Some items would close at 11:05pm EST and others would last until a bid is not received for 5 minutes. Isn't this easy ?

That’s basically what REA is doing except (1) it starts at midnight eastern (not 11pm), (2) you must place your bids by like 3pm the final day to be able to continue bidding later that day.

Our extended bidding starts at 10pm. Haven't had an auction get to midnight yet.

Obviously I'm not REA or Heritage but we'll see what happens with my upcoming memorabilia auction as it is well over 1,000 lots which is a first for us.

Auction format
 

I like this new format by REA. They have to accommodate the West Coast, and don't want to close during dinner hours.

I prefer the "live", traditional format used by the art houses, but most of their auctions have fewer than 200 lots. Hunt's and Saco River employ the live format on smaller auctions, and I think it works well if you have 300 lots or less.

Sotheby's has this Paul Serusier coming to the block on Feb. 5 in London, estimated at 170,000 English Pounds, just a bit more than a PSA 10 Jeter rookie...

This seems like a great way to do it.

What is the purpose of having g an extended bidding session between 6 PM and 12 AM? I must be overlooking something.

It's the endless debate and will go and on and on. I think 90% of us agree that auctions closing at 4 or 5 am suck (at least for us east coasters). A number of auction houses have been fine tuning in recent years and trying different things and I commend them for it.

The live Hunts style auction to me is easily the best. I watched their last auction and it was a lot of fun and I jumped in and bought 3 lots I otherwise would have passed on simply because they were under priced. I couldn't do that at 4 am because I would be fast asleep. And the rare item that was must have material I snagged, and didn't lose out to snipers.

I've noticed in recent auctions a meaningful percentage of lots that never attract a single bid. Won't name any particular AH. I would suspect in a live auction format everyone of them or very close to it would sell.

Auctions that close in the middle of the night leave a lot of my and presumably others' money on the table. Can't imagine how their consignors are cool with that.

why do you think that is?

Lots of reasons, not the least of which is, like I said, I am hardly a big player. My top items are usually in the $2,000 range. While I do get fairly rare items they're not high demand rare items so I don't have 15 guys all hoping to be the last bid in extended bidding and 4 or 5 guys who put in a monster top bid.

Also my ending is about as close to a live auction ending (I was a live auctioneer first so this was intentional) as I could make it. I debated leaving extended bidding open to everyone which would most closely mimic a live auction, but decided that everyone would wait until the last minute to place even an initial bid which might terrify consignors. As a new player to the field I couldn't afford that so I compromised. You have to bid before 10pm eastern closing day on a given item to be eligible to bid on that item after 10pm. Our clock is 15 minutes and lots close individually, which, to me is the most important thing.

Finally most of my auctions have been between 300 and 500 lots which also helps them close early. I am very curious to see how the next one, which is by FAR our largest ever, closes.

The best way for any auction IMO is to get all the bidders ready to bid at onetime. Giving the bidders strategy in an auction is a good thing and allowing them to shift their bidding based on their budget is good to.

1. Must place a bid by extended time.
2. Each lot goes off individually (10-30 minutes AH choice)

Extended time is when the timer starts to count down on each lot.

No hard closes at a default time
No more late night auctions where the entire auction closes at sametime
No more penalties for doing an after hour bid (clean sweep)
No more confusing closes (LOTG and Hakes)
Keep the next bid increments nominal and allow cut bids or any amount over.

All AHs need to use third party insurance and not make shipping or insurance a profit center. Nor, pass on "actual cost" from the carrier like Fed Ex or UPS which basically screws the buyer.

I just had a long conversation with a friend about REA’s new close and I have changed my tune a tad. I fully applaud REA for continuing to improve, and I really was against the all-lots-close-at-midnight, and think the 5-minute, lot-by-lot close is a huge improvement. But 5 minutes may not be enough. Especially, when you are bidding on 8-12 lots; it’s just too hectic in 5 minutes. I think you need more time. I think I am starting to think this would be my ideal auction close:

Extended bidding starts at 11pm eastern. During extended bidding, every lot closes on a lot by lot basis after 15 minutes goes by on that lot without a bid.

So close to perfection lol. we start extended bidding at 10pm eastern and do 15 minute clock.

My most favorite online auctions are "live" in the sense that lots are presented and close lot by lot. None of the major sports auctions use liveauctioneers but I believe Hunts Live auctions use invaluable.com which is similar. With liveauctioneers typically auctions with a thousand or more lots will close over a few days. I can track my lots and bids through the app and will get notified when outbid and even the day of the auction to remind me of the start time. Sometimes I can watch the auctions that I'm interested in but if I'm busy or working I dont worry about it. As long as I've thrown a bid on a lot I'm interested in I'll get a phone notification 15 minutes before my lot comes up. Some of these auctions can be attended live. I dont see why some of the big players in the sports auction arena dont take this approach.

Can't speak for other auctions but there are a number of reasons. First liveauctioneers is on someone else's platform which isn't attractive to those of us who have nightmare situations on similar software. You are giving up control of the process to a corporation that may or may not get back to you in an emergency, solve problems quickly etc.

2nd 3000+ lots even at only 2 minutes per item would be more than 4 days. I'd be terrified of people losing interest, missing items they wanted etc.

I do live auctions as well, and I'm a big fan of them as a buyer too, but there's a reason that most sports auction houses run variations on the same theme. It has worked, and appears to be the best way to get the most possible bids. You will continue to see tweaks, and maybe someone with little to lose may attempt a paradigm shift, but it would be very odd to see a massively successful company scrap a system that is working.

Points well taken however...
5000 auctioneers trust liveauctioneers alone. I'm not saying an auction company needs to use it just saying I like the format. Auctions on liveauctioneers typically get through about 60-100 lots an hour so 2 minutes per lot average isnt happening. My other primary collecting interest of automobilia almost exclusively uses this format, some with a live auction attendance as an option. I can live with both formats to cover my interests. :)

I do a little over 100/hour live, and there are guys who are faster. Even 100 lots per hour (which I don't believe an actual simulcast could possibly do, but maybe a "live" internet auction can) is 30+ hours for a major auction. That's a lot of pay because you have to have people watching at all times.

Also one of the biggest auction platforms out there, with more users than liveauctioneers, crashed AGAIN this week, completely screwing auctioneers who had auctions ending. So the amount of people using a service isn't relevant to me. I'm not casting aspersions on liveauctioneers, it's just when you aren't in control of what runs your business it's a scary feeling.

Even though I am usually not bidding on multiple lots at a time, I would vote for this close. I also acknowledge that we will not come to a consensus and there will be critics of every conceivable auction close. Probably will even be critics of the “inconceivable” types of auction closes if anyone catches the reference there.

With all of this auction talk, I'd be interested in knowing what everyone would think if ebay added a 15 minute clock after a bid even after the auction ended? So once the auction ends and there are no more bids for 15 minutes, it then ends and goes to the highest bidder.

Good for sellers - not so much for snipers

This seems like the most reasonable compromise.

HEY! You are not supposed to out auctions here! I was going to go for the Paul Serusier at Sotheby's but now that you've outed it I'll never be able to afford it! THANKS! :D

Fred, I was not the consignor, so I figured it was okay..ha-ha..Rob

Thanks for acknowledging my attempt at humor.

+1 I like it too

Well, if the 'ridiculous' OT wars of attrition are the concern, why not institute a hard closing time for each lot, staggered by several seconds? That way we could use sniping software with bid grouping.

Slightly O/T: why don't more auctioneers allow bids on zero bid items in OT? If I get KO'd from a lot in OT I might very well look at the zero bid items.