The way auctions close?

[Luke]

As a buyer, I just don't want any particular card (s) bad enough to stay up watching these auctions all night. I put it my max bid with the AHs i trust and go to bed. I don't bid with the ones I don't trust. If the closings happened at a normal time, i would get involved, but the current system seems pretty much insane to me.

[nolemmings]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

As a buyer, I just don't want any particular card (s) bad enough to stay up watching these auctions all night. I put it my max bid with the AHs i trust and go to bed. I don't bid with the ones I don't trust. If the closings happened at a normal time, i would get involved, but the current system seems pretty much insane to me.

Exactly. If you place 5-6 max bids and go to bed, only to find out they all were topped at 3:45 a.m., then your money slept. But if they were topped earlier because the auction was ending sooner, you might still get that urge to win something and extend your max bid(s), particularly if you saw they were all topped and you adjusted your goal to just trying to win one or two.

Barry is right "And bidders who have to eventually go to sleep are bidders who aren't bidding, so the auction house is leaving some amount of money on the table." Saying that night owls bid late doesn't mean: a) they would not have bid earlier if required to by the rules and b) doesn't account for money lost from those who went to sleep while still willing to spend.

[glchen]

I was thinking about this to see if there was a way to combine the best options for both the all lots at once closing method and the each lot closes on its own way. The advantage for the each lot closes individually is that you don't need to stay up all night to figure out if you've won the lot. However, if there are 10 lots that you are interested in, and you only have a certain budget, then you may end up not bidding on certain lots in order to try to get the ones you want. However, if you end up losing those lots, you usually can't go back to your other lots, because those lots have also closed by that time. You can do this for the auction where all lots close at once, but you usually can't go to sleep either.

This may be too complicated, but what if you set up these rules:

(1) You must place an initial bid before extended time in order to bid on that lot during extended time and after.

(2) On the closing day of the auction, you have a longer extended time, say from 7pm EST - 10pm EST. All lots in the auction stay open during this time. However, if there are no new bids on a lot during this extended time, the lot immediately closes once extended time is over.

(3) When extended time is finished, all lots that received a bid during extended time enter the 30 minute individual lot by lot closing method. As usual, if the lot does not receive a bid after 30 minutes, the lot closes. Otherwise, the 30 minute timer resets.

The advantage of this is that it allows auctions that don't have may bids to just close early. You realize what you have won and can use that information in the next extended time. The disadvantage of course is confusion on what lots are going close at what time.

A similar idea is do the all lots close at one time with the 30 minute rule but with a tweak.

(1) As before, you must place an initial bid before extended time in order to bid on that lot during extended time and after.

(2) On the closing day of the auction, you have your extended time start at 8pm EST with the thirty minute rule. However, the timer does not reset after 30 minutes. Instead, the first extended session ends after 30 minutes, e.g., 8:30pm EST. All lots that received a bid during extended time will be open during the next 30 minute extended time from 8:30pm - 9pm EST. If there were no bids, the lot would close. This would continue for multiple extended sessions, where hopefully more and more lots would close. At a set time, say 11pm EST, the extended sessions would be shortened to 15 minutes. Then at 1am EST, it would again be shortened to 5 minutes.

This method may give buyers more clarity on whether they've already won an item or the price is now above their max bid, so they have the option to move onto other lots. Or it could cause mass chaos and confusion since bidders again may not know which lots are closing at what time.

[Centauri]

My 2 cents:

I think the best auction style to maximise returns for the consigner is string style - one after the other. If one missed out on an early item, then one might be more inclined to go for the later item. Example: I was watching an ebay auction of 3 game used bats, each ending on a seperate day. The bats were same player, same model, no material differences between them. The first went for $160, the next $200, the last one $230. There was clearly an element of desperation as the options dwindled.

As for payment - I really don't see a better option than credit card. Bump the premium if cost is an issue, but if the buyer doesn't have a credit card, I wouldn't trust them on in house credit anyhow.

[jefferyepayne]

I keep a list of auctions that close individual lots if no bids have been made on that item for some amount of time. I'm afraid the only way the status quo is going to change is if people start voting with their dollars and further supporting auction houses who don't close all at once at insane hours of the night.

Here's my list. Let me know if I'm missing anybody.

Baggers
Brockelman & Luckey
Bussineau
Heritage
Huggins & Scott
Joe’s Vintage Sports Cards Auctions
Legendary Auctions
Mears Auctions

jeff

[ElCabron]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

I keep a list of auctions that close individual lots if no bids have been made on that item for some amount of time. I'm afraid the only way the status quo is going to change is if people start voting with their dollars and further supporting auction houses who don't close all at once at insane hours of the night.

Here's my list. Let me know if I'm missing anybody.

Baggers
Brockelman & Luckey
Bussineau
Heritage
Huggins & Scott
Joe’s Vintage Sports Cards Auctions
Legendary Auctions
Mears Auctions

jeff

This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke. There's no possible way you could be suggesting that you, or any other human, should be boycotting auctions that aren't on your list, but should bid with freaking Legendary. Please tell me that's not a serious post. Please?

With all the fraud in the hobby and all the shady practices, you're going to vote with your dollars based on the manner in which an auction house closes? I wonder how much extra voting you did with your dollars by getting shill bid by scumbag auction houses over the years. But I guess at least you got to bed early.

I'm not saying any auction house has a perfect way of closing and dealing with the extended bidding period (a perfect way does not exist), but to take a stance like this when there is rampant fraud which you can't pretend you're not aware of, is absolutely insane.

-Ryan

[begsu1013]

a lot of people use snipe services for ebay, but not sure if they work on auction house sites.

however, this is a very interesting thread and good question. I very rarely sell but ironically enough, actually have my first auction going on right now on my backup pete rose set (shameless plug) and have set it to start and end this Sunday from 10ish - 11:30ish, est. Lots are ending about 3 minutes apart w/ a few 5 mins breathers in there. I also set it for a 10 day listing. Again, just testing my theory and naturally curious to see how she ends up.

from a buyers perspective, it seems that Sunday's around this time always bring in the bigger pay days as it's not necessarily too late for the east coasters or too early for the left coasters.

On the other hand, I have also noticed that some people have followed this guideline not realizing it's Superbowl Sunday and subsequently gotten 3 deals of the century due to this "personal theory".

edited to add: as for the line of credit question, I think it would be a good thing to extend credit for up to 6 months on a certain level of a purchase. ie, "sir, i'm sorry i cant finance your 86 topps traded otis nixon psa 7". what might be an even better idea is to have a customer that might like that extension apply for pre-approval PRIOR to the auction. even then you have a decision to make as a consignor/auction house: a. do you extend the credit yourself, keep the card until it's paid off and make a lil side money on interest w/ the possibility of keeping all payments if the purchaser defaults. or b. simply outsource your customers to a credit company (however it could still be called "leon's credit co" and make additional funds on the "referral" basis. basically you write the note and get their credit limit approved by ABC credit and then ABC credit buys the debt. and to answer your question in full on either a. or b. i have always been a proponent of the steve miller monetary theory: "go on, take the money and run".

[ibuysportsephemera]

I like auction houses that end the bidding after a period of time when no bids are placed for each individual item. I also like the idea of ending an item that only has 1 bid prior to the extending bidding time. However, I understand that this doesn't always maximize the price for the consignor or the AH.

But isn't it fair to say, if you really, really want an item, you are going to stay engaged until the item is hammered or you have reached you maximum bid?

Jeff

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by ElCabron

This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke. There's no possible way you could be suggesting that you, or any other human, should be boycotting auctions that aren't on your list, but should bid with freaking Legendary. Please tell me that's not a serious post. Please?

With all the fraud in the hobby and all the shady practices, you're going to vote with your dollars based on the manner in which an auction house closes? I wonder how much extra voting you did with your dollars by getting shill bid by scumbag auction houses over the years. But I guess at least you got to bed early.

I'm not saying any auction house has a perfect way of closing and dealing with the extended bidding period (a perfect way does not exist), but to take a stance like this when there is rampant fraud which you can't pretend you're not aware of, is absolutely insane.

-Ryan

Hi Ryan! You know my personal stance on Legendary. I don't bid on their auctions and didn't mean to imply anybody should. Sorry. They are on this list because they close their auctions lot by lot. Didn't mean to imply anything more than that and should have said so.

jeff

[ElCabron]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for clarifying that. Your post made it seem like that's what you were implying, especially when you mentioned voting with your dollars. I'm glad you're not encouraging people to bid with Legendary just because they close their auctions in a particular way.

-Ryan

[Jaybird]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

Hi Ryan! You know my personal stance on Legendary. I don't bid on their auctions and didn't mean to imply anybody should. Sorry. They are on this list because they close their auctions lot by lot. Didn't mean to imply anything more than that and should have said so.

jeff

Jeez, this is still a hobby, right? Boycotting and organizing labor seems extreme.

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne

if people start voting with their dollars and further supporting auction houses who don't close all at once at insane hours of the night.

Here's my list. Let me know if I'm missing anybody.

Baggers
Brockelman & Luckey
Bussineau
Heritage
Huggins & Scott
Joe’s Vintage Sports Cards Auctions
Legendary Auctions
Mears Auctions

jeff

Jeff, Don't know why you'd want to boycott a slew of good honest auction houses just because they have different ending times.
Just place your top all bid and get some sleep.

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by Jay Wolt

Jeff, Don't know why you'd want to boycott a slew of good honest auction houses just because they have different ending times.
Just place your top all bid and get some sleep.

Only boycotting Legendary, Jay, for different reasons as mentioned. I didn't mean to imply or throw good, honest auction houses under the bus. I know consigner preferences often drive the closing method an auction house chooses. Some may be more convenient for some than others but as long as they are honest, that's good enough for me!

jeff

[x2drich2000]

Noticed this tonight while thumbing through the REA catalog: "Payment is due within 14 days of notification of lots won. Please call to prearrange and to be approved for any type of payment schedule, which can sometimes be arranged with a deposit and interest charges."

DJ