Why the extended bidding?
 

I keep reading about auction houses and “extended bidding” what’s the reason for it? Why not just say the auction ends on X date and time and high bid wins it? I continually read horror story after horror story about these auctions and it seems to always involve “extended bidding”. I always buy off eBay and here on the BST so my knowledge on auction houses is pretty non existent, hence my question.

Simple, to get the most money they can for their consignors.

Because a live auction doesn't just cut off bidding at a given time, it runs until there is no bidding on an item. Extended bidding is the way to most closely mimic that without an auction taking several days to end, as it would if you closed thousands of lots in order waiting until you had no bids on a given lot to move on to the next one.

Also if you think there's problems now just wait until you see the server crashes with a fixed time ending. literally EVERYONE will be trying to jam last second snipes down the server's throat. It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

I thought it was to better simulate a live auction where a lot doesn't end at a specific time but stays open until no one wants to bid on it anymore.

Jinx, you owe me a coke.

I can tell you from a recent auction that I consigned items to. I freaking like it! I had an item increase my return by a couple hundred bucks. Something that would not have happened if the auction would have had a hard close.

In the words of Martha Stewart. ‘It’s a good thing.’

Butch

and that is the reason well versed. More money for the consignor means more money for the Auction House.

Only thing is just wish some Auction Houses limited the extended bid better so it does not sometimes go until 4am, 5am or longer

Hi Scott, has any live auction you've held or taken part in last several days?

It's to promote the sales price, and having the whole auction open until there arent any bids is the epitome of stupidity. Buyers put up with it, until they dont.

Scott, remind me at the next Philly Show. :)

I guess it took me a while from when I opened the thread to when I responded since when I was looking at the thread, your response wasn't there.

Some of the Hunt Auctions that are live online do close in order by lot without moving to the next lot until the current one has no more bids. They do take quite a while to get through all the lots, but so far, none of the ones that I have followed have taken days.

To answer your question yes. Also I have been to several auctions with 3 different auctioneers working at the same time. If you have thousands of lots live you have no choice.

Of course these aren't in the sports genre, but I don't think you could get card guys to sit through a 12 hour auction and they would be pissed at missing out on what the other two auctioneers were selling simultaneously in a sale of that nature.

I come from a live auction background. When I was still doing live auctions 500 was our absolute limit as that took about 5 hours from beginning of auction until end of check out, and even then we would start to lose our crowd.

People say "to make the consignors and the auction more money" as if that wasn't the purpose of live auctions in the first place. Again the reason online auctions run the way they do is to mimic a live auction more closely. The purpose of the auction format was always to make consignors and the auction company more money.

Finally I couldn't agree more with the complaint about an entire auction staying open until no item has a bid. THAT is NOT anything to do with how auctions have run pre-internet. I can't imagine being on lot 300 of a live auction and someone yelling out I bid $450 on lot 32!

How many lots?

There are a couple of companies that don't specialize in sports that do this as well. I love them because they are usually places to snap up bargains.

Hunt usually has around 1000 lots. They have pre-bidding for several weeks on their website which ends the night before the live online auction takes place so there are already bids on lots which is where the bidding starts at. The live online auction part that I have done for Hunt is through invaluable.com.

OK Pre bidding SHOULD tighten things up a little bit, but I bet it ran about 6 hours.

Also that's 1000 lots. Very different than the 3000 plus of a major auction. Live I could've gotten through 1000 lots in roughly 10 hours with no pre-bidding.

The Hunt live auction is a fun way of doing it. It does take a long time though.

When Paul Fusco of Fusco Auctions was still with us, used to love going to his combined live/internet auctions in person. People would pre-bid online, and then the live bidding would start at a designated time, just like extended bidding. Paul would then go through, lot by lot, and sell each lot live and in order. His wife, Debbie, sat next to him on his right-hand side and monitored the computer and online bids as they came in, calling them out alongside bids coming from people in the audience. He told me one time he was on 5 different online auction sites all at the same time, and that even people in China could be bidding live against you in attendance.

Paul was very quick and dedicated, and when on a roll could get through 75-100+ lots per hour. Still, you could easily be there a good 4-5-6 hours waiting for the lot(s) you were interested in to come up, and for the auction to finally end. He always used to bring in pizza/sandwiches and pop partway through the auction for those in attendance. One of the nicer things of attending his auctions live was you could come early and have a chance to personally see and examine everything in the auction. Also, as each auction lot closed, his staff would bring you the auction item(s) you had won. He also always had another staffer or two then handling a checkout/cashier's office where you could pay for everything whenever you were ready to go. You didn't have to wait till the entire auction was over to pay and be on your way. They constantly updated people's winning bids in the cashier's office. Also, by being in attendance and paying by cash/check, there was no surcharge the online winners usually got tagged with for paying by credit card. And if you did stay to the end, you were usually rewarded with several late auction entries that were not available to online bidders, only those in attendance. These late, live auction only lots, also generally included what Paul called "balance of one man's collection" lots, which would sometimes literally cover entire tables, or be stuffed into single or multiple boxes. Never knew what you would find, but had fun just looking through them. It was the stuff Paul said he couldn't usually see selling as individu.al items or in small lots, or that he didn't want to have to pack up and pay to have shipped to some online buyer. Aaahhh, those were the days.

Reminds me very much of our live auctions except we were live-only, no internet bidding.

551. Undeadline
The continually reanimated ending time of an auction with “extended bidding” rules in play.

If I lived close, would gladly be coming. Live auctions are fun though.

I agree, a lot of fun, and a LOT less work. I do miss them, but they just don't make a ton of sense from a business standpoint for us. I can put (on a good day) about 100 people in a room to bid on 500 lots, or I can sell well over 1000 lots to thousands of people. Plus people are understandably leery of consigning big items to a live only auction, but if you introduce online bidding, at least around here, you kill your live audience. Our consignments have improved by an order of magnitude since the pandemic forced us 100% online. We talk about doing one live auction a year as an excuse to get together with our old clientele face to face.

perfect example of the benefits of extended/"live" bidding
 

Hi all- so, last night I held my nose and participated in an ebay auction that
was actually real- not Buy It Now, but a 7 day auction. It was not for a
card, but rather for a slabbed "Golden Age " comic book. The way it
unfolded serves as a great example of the advantages of "extended bids"
or live auctions...

So, the auction ended at 11:30 pm Eastern. I went to bed with
the high bid, but had work so I didn't sit at the desktop until 11:30. I knew
some clown would snipe me, but the details are remarkable- in the last 60
seconds of the auction, there were NINE bids. Of those 9, 3 came in the
very last second of the auction. EVERY bid was from a bidder who hadn't
bid previously; in other words, by people who couldn't be bothered to
participate in the first 6 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes of the 7 day event.
People who use a snipe tool but don't actually "participate", determined
the outcome.

So, I already know the objections- "if you wanted the book that badly you
should have bid higher", "should have stayed up later". Yep, I get it, not
my first rodeo. The larger point is that, if I truly wanted that book,
extended bids would have afforded me at least a puncher's chance, and
may have dissuaded the snipe heroes. THIS is why I prefer the concept
of extended bids- it's more "honest" and benefits people who have truly
established a previous stake in the auction. Trent King

Scott,

I hear you loud and clear. That was why Paul ran his auctions with multiple online groups also. He expanded the marketplace and bidders for his auctions that way. He also did way more than just sports cards and memorabilia. He did antiques, stamps, coins, estates, you name it. I remember going to one of his live estate auctions he held right in the front yard of the person's house. He let people know there was sports stuff there so, a lot of his sports customers, like me, showed up.

Because of all the other things he was into, especially the antiques, he had to have warehouse size spaces to store furniture mostly. And since he already had the venues and space, the history as a live auctioneer, and he was already doing other types of auctions more geared for live attendees, he just continues to do the sports auctions as live and online, even though he may only get 50-100 people at them. That is what he enjoyed doing, and he had a number of steady customers always showing up for the live auctions, like myself. And as you said, live auctions made it a lot less work since he didn't have to pack and ship everything, and he would get paid right then and there by the attendees. And like I said, he'd always throw in some extra live only lots at the end for those attending.

It was also nice to meet and catch up with other attendees you'd meet at his live auctions over the years as well. It was always worth going to his live auctions, and he seemed to have a knack for picking up some really cool, obscure stuff as well. He was a great guy.

You really should look into some online venues to maybe try a live/internet combined auction. You might be surprised since the pandemic how many people may turn up just to get out and do something as opposed to sitting on their computer at home. Throw in some live only lots, and maybe a slight break for attending and paying in cash/check in person, so you don't have the credit card or other payment service fees. You know how many people on here complain about things like sales tax, so if you can knock even 1%-2% off live attendees paying in cash/check, you may get more people showing up for that live auction as well. Plus all the time and shipping costs you save. You should think about it.