Closing Bidding
I too prefer the Saturday night close (and I also love the recent bids feature), but after watching the bidding until the bitter end, I wonder if ending the auction earlier in the day would really have any impact on the ultimate closing time at all. The REA bidding was pretty steady throughout the night, and it still seemed like a battle of attrition between the bidders and sleep.
Perhaps a hybrid approach could be used:
1) At 3:00 p.m. a person can continue to bid only on lots that they've already bid on. If bidding stalls for 15 minutes, then the auction can be closed, but that's not likely to happen.
2) At midnight (or whenever) individual lots that haven't had a bid for 15 minutes can start closing.
I understand the arguments about needing to keep all lots open so that people can move from one lot to another if they don't want to keep bidding on their first choice (like what appears to have happened with the GCM lots Saturday night), but this might also encourage more bids on the secondary lots to keep them open, or more aggressive bids on the top lots because the second choice isn't available anymore.
Finally, it would be interesting to know how many different lots were bid on after, say, midnight to know how big of an issue being able to bid on second choice lots really is. For example, if 90% of the lots were set by midnight, then it might not be as big of an issue as we think. I wonder if Rob could comment.
For us bidders, though, best solution in the meantime is probably No Doz and a clear calendar Sunday morning.
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