Poll: Auction House Closing Method
 

Which auction house closing method do you prefer:

A - All lots close after no bids for 15 minutes (a.k.a. the 15 minute rule or all-nighter rule).

B - Lots close individually after 15 minutes of receiving no bids after the auction enters extended bidding.

C - Is there another preferred method? If so, please indicate what it is in the thread.

B

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Not a fan of the slow all night rule, you can have a couple of drunk Ritchie's arguing over a card for hours.
Give me an individual lot time so we can hash it out before the sun rises.

I voted B as I am (mostly) buying. I would vote A for consigning!

How about option A, but with "extended bidding" beginning at noon Eastern instead of 9 pm?

Yeah, is there a reason extended bidding needs to start so late? I'm sure the people running the auction houses know a lot more than I do about it, but entire auctions running until midnight seems excessive, and I'm just talking about the west coast. It's brutal for the east coast bidders (who probably outnumber by like 3:1 at least).

I voted C.

I like a hybrid, kind of like LOTG does it (items without a recent bid close at a certain time and the rest of the auction remains open), or Cleansweep (buyers premium or bid increment goes up for bids placed after a certain time).

B For me

I don't think there can be a perfect ending because everyone has different ideas and agendas. I know that I generally fall asleep after about 1am and I don't put max bids in....so, I lose out a lot nowadays.
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This will never fly, but I'd like all auction items to have a cold end at the same time: 10:00 p.m. EST or earlier. I already know what I'm willing to spend, so I place my max bids before that time so I can get on with more important things like sleeping. Not interested in spending more than my max bid or staying up until past 2:00 a.m. to do so. Ridiculous.

Also, these auction houses should know their audience. Most of their big money customers are not 20-something night owls.

Poll: Auction House Closing Method
 

We can’t go back to sniping and depend on bots to bid for us.

Prefer B.

Nobody said that, either.

Fixed closing times lead to sniping.

I prefer when the seller lists their item with no price and writes, "taking offers."

Wait...wrong thread. :D

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By the time an auction enters extended bidding, I've usually narrowed my focus down to a handful of items. The lot-by-lot closing method is best for me. I have a method of tracking/bidding that is optimized for that auction format. While I typically win multiple lots, I can occasionally go "all in" on one item this way.

Close at one given time, say 10pm
No extension period
No sniping
But assuming all the last sec bids would have the site “crash”

If I am not mistaking, that has happened and that has happened. :eek:
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Isn't the rush of last second bids called "sniping?"

The whole idea of extended bidding is to mimic a "real" auction. At a live auction I have never said "Hey guys I'm taking bids for 30 more seconds and wherever the bidding is at that time the lot is sold." Frankly Ebay style that allows sniping isn't a "real" auction to me.

Auction closing
 

My Vote is C. Don't really care for the up till 4:am stuff

Seems the voting is pretty overwhelming.

I personally prefer lot by lot, 15 or 30 mins. But all methods have pros and cons. I absolutely hate it in 30 min lot by lot auctions when a bidder keeps waiting to the very last second to bid and extend the time with the hopes of drawing it out so other bidders hopefully fall asleep. I go much more aggressive in bidding when people do this.

I prefer the free-for all OT. I am on a budget, so the more flexibility I have, the better. Lot by lot closings are a PITA to track and work through; see my column on the subject. I had to spend hours actively participating in a Heritage closing in real time because I had to track and coordinate my bids on multiple items. I'd rather not have to do that.

That said, I do like the format where there is a double-overtime that closes lots individually for no activity after 15 minutes once the initial 3-4 hours of freeform OT are over. At that point there is no need to hold everything and everyone hostage to what may be a few bidders cutting each other to pieces over one lot.

I also like the idea of a lot with only one bid closing at the end of regulation. No need to OT one of those.

As a final twist, I would like to see any lots that failed to open be available for a single bid in OT. Might get some stuff sold that would otherwise pass.

+1

If the idea is to mimic a "real" auction, why not have the extended bidding periods be something like 30 seconds, or a minute or two? 15 minutes has always seemed excessively long to me.

Because that's not nearly enough time for people tracking multiple items.

Some smaller online auctions literally run the online auction like a live auction. Running each lot individually in order. Sometimes after having general bidding first. Problem is for a large auction it could take days to close that way.

I actually was looking thru the no bid items in LOTG the other night while waiting for the end and saw a couple items that I thought to myself "oh darn, that's kind of cool, sorry I didn't notice it before 9 pm".

C. All items have a set end point and close at that time, like eBay. I'm never usually going for multiple items

As an aside, I'm not a fan of "you must have initial bids placed by [insert time here]". Any bid should be accepted at any time before the actual closing time.

Wouldn't something like 3-5 minutes still be more than adequate then? Even if you're tracking many items, it doesn't take more than a few seconds to click refresh and bid for each one...

I have people who complain 15 minutes isn't enough. You have some people watching dozens of items.

If you think auctions run long now...

Yea no, auction night is chaotic enough without free for all rules.

B for me....
 

i just do not feel like it is fair to "give the last look" to someone up at 3AM.

What if you gotta go to the john? What if you need to get another beer? C'mon man! Think it through.

Should actually be 45 min so we can catch a 30 min nap in between until the sun rises.

In all honesty, my biggest problem with pretty much every auction is people bidding against me. I would really like some kind of system put in place that wouldn't make that possible.

It's the #1 way to ruin an auction for me and it's an addressable issue with an easy fix.

Thanks.

+1

Steve

Some auctions are already running in a way close to this. Sterling lets you bid on any lot in extended bidding as long as you bid on at least one lot before extended bidding starts.

Clean Sweep lets you bid on any lot in extended bidding if you bid on at least 10 lots before extended bidding.

You still have to bid on a ton of lots prior to the initial timer running out. It's rare I can find ten lots of interest in anyone's auction, let alone a minimum of ten before I'm "rewarded" with the "permission" to spend more money.

This is always interesting and I love to read the feedback.

To me though the question needs to be asked in two different questions. One as a consignor and one as a buyer. As a buyer most of the time you want to pay as little as possible. As a consignor you want to maximize the value.

Both are necessary to make an auction successful but without consignments you have no auction so that weighs heavy into the rules of an auction.

My personal experience being on both sides have obviously been a factor in the rules of Sterling. One big pet peeve of mine when I was a bidder was not being able to bid on all lots in extended bidding. I always had a limited budget, if I was outbid above my level and look back and find lots that I would have bid on because they were not a priority in regular bidding in case I would win the items I were heavily interested in. That is why Sterling has the WHOLE auction available to bid in extended bidding.

The closing for Sterling changed about 4 or 5 years ago to make sure the auction does not close at 3-4 am set. On closing night At 1am I reserve the right to close the auction at anytime. I send out an email at that time to give them fair warning that it may close at any time not within the 15 minute rule. I will start resetting the timer to around 3 minutes to give bidders that were out bid time to react. Generally the auctions close between 1:20 to 1:30 am set.

Lee Behrens
Sterling Sports Auctions

I've been beating the drum for B for a decade. And you might notice that more and more auction houses have shifted to lot by lot closing over the past 5 years. There is NO EVIDENCE that closing an auction at 4am EST results in more bids or higher returns for consigners. NONE. ZERO. NADDA. It is ridiculous. Lot by lot closing forces all of those late-night stallers to bid actively and frequently. I don't recall any lot-by-lot auction item I've been interested in taking longer than an hour to close after extended bidding has begun.

The reality is that late-night closings help everybody except those on the East Coast where the majority of collectors still live. PST benefits as it is earlier and easier to stay awake for. And ironically Europe benefits as they are up the next day by the time some of these auctions close!

I made the decision 10 years ago to stop bidding on auctions that don't close lot by lot but make a few exceptions for an item I see that I really really want. But because I just can't stay up that late, I always set a maximum bid and go to bed. I would bet I win items doing that less than 5% of the time while my win rate is much higher when I'm awake at closing. The reality is you don't really know what your max bid is until you are faced with bidding and potentially winning or giving up. When bidding on many items, it is also impossible to set max bids for all the items as you don't expect to win them all so plan to reallocate $$$ once an item goes beyond your limit.

It's time for late night auction closings to stop. Please join me in pushing for this to happen. My football forum has been discussing taking a more proactive role in pushing for lot by lot closings for all auctions. We are still discussing how best to accomplish this but have some ideas I'm happy to share with Net54 if enough members here want to help push for change.

jeff

P.S; I'm find with a double close method as long as the double close is over by midnight EST.

I really, really appreciate this, Lee.

Lee, love the way your auction runs.

I hope dealers are looking at this because I don't think there has ever been a Net54 poll where there was such overwhelming agreement.

As for making up our own rules (such as, "no one else can bid") I would like the ability to retroactively increase my bids on closed auctions. I will even be reasonable and limit it to "auctions that closed within the last 30 days".

Because recently there were five or six auctions closing within a few weeks of each other where each had items I was interested in. And every time I stopped bidding, in my mind it was because I could allocate that money towards the next auction. Then it came down to LOTG and Heritage and I thought, well, those are the lots I REALLY want, so I'm glad I saved money from the prior auctions.

And when my multi-increment-higher max bid got topped on the LOTG lot I wanted, I thought "I am going to bid whatever it takes to get the Heritage lot". And then I ran into someone else who felt the same way and I just couldn't justify spending three times more than I originally thought the lot would go for.

So now that I have extra cash on hand, I want to go back to LOTG, REA, Sterling, Brockelman, Mile High, etc. and keep bidding on closed lots!

Luckily for all of us, there is always the next auction. No need to spend it all today if you can save it for the next auction opening tomorrow.

Overwhelming for sure. But hey, the auctioneers know better ...

jeff