Goldin Auctions Down?

[LOUCARDFAN]

Same crap happened the last Goldin auction. They had the same server issues when extended bidding began.


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[Mark17]

I sold my collection of Twins bats, plus some others, in the VSA auction 3 weeks ago, and they went down a couple times during the final evening. They extended it an hour and everything finished up that night.

So it seems a lot of auction houses are experiencing this problem.

[bcornell]

Originally Posted by Mark17

I sold my collection of Twins bats, plus some others, in the VSA auction 3 weeks ago, and they went down a couple times during the final evening. They extended it an hour and everything finished up that night.

So it seems a lot of auction houses are experiencing this problem.

VSA is another SimpleAuctionSite customer (the logo is in the footer on the homepage). This is the same platform that Goldin uses.

Reminder: don't blame the auctioneer, blame the platform.

[Snapolit1]

Don't blame the auctioneer? Ever? Really? Do they have an IT Department? Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms? Maybe I'm naive, but I think if you run an online business and your stems falls on its face you've dropped the ball.

Goldin sent out an email early Friday that said please don't wait to long to bid as they system might experience slowness near 10pm? Isn't this called being on notice that there are problems coming?


QUOTE=bcornell;1981850]VSA is another SimpleAuctionSite customer (the logo is in the footer on the homepage). This is the same platform that Goldin uses.

Reminder: don't blame the auctioneer, blame the platform.[/QUOTE]

[bcornell]

Q: Do they have an IT department?
A: No

Q: Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms?
A: See previous answer

Every auction house tells you to bid early every time they run an auction. That doesn't mean they anticipate problems, it's that they're trying to get more bids.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Don't blame the auctioneer? Ever? Really? Do they have an IT Department? Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms? Maybe I'm naive, but I think if you run an online business and your stems falls on its face you've dropped the ball.

Goldin sent out an email early Friday that said please don't wait to long to bid as they system might experience slowness near 10pm? Isn't this called being on notice that there are problems coming?

[Snapolit1]

That’s weird. My wife runs a small consulting business on line bringing in annually a minuscule fraction of what a single high ticket auction item brings and we’ve had an IT consultant under retainer to assist with her website.



UOTE=bcornell;1981861]Q: Do they have an IT department?
A: No

Q: Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms?
A: See previous answer

Every auction house tells you to bid early every time they run an auction. That doesn't mean they anticipate problems, it's that they're trying to get more bids.[/QUOTE]

[dstudeba]

Goldin doesn't have the expertise or the resources to do stress testing of the auction platform. And if he doesn't have it, what about smaller customers? Lee Behrens? Scott Brockelman? Are they supposed to do stress testing?

Does Simple Auctions even allow their customers to do stress testing?

Ford crashes a bunch of cars to find out the weaknesses of their cars, the individual owners don't.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Goldin sent out an email early Friday that said please don't wait to long to bid as they system might experience slowness near 10pm? Isn't this called being on notice that there are problems coming?

I see the point here. If an email was sent indicating possible issues and not to wait to long to bid, then after the first train wreck on Saturday maybe the next notice should have been, better bid now (before the next extended bidding period on Sunday) because if the thing crashes again, we're going to just call it a day (auction over). Instead this is in limbo.

If anything comes from this, you would hope that all AHs will learn from this mess and come up with a plan B that doesn't lead to plan C. I think that's where the frustration is.

There are people that probably bid early on Sunday in anticipation of another mess occurring and now they're just going to get bumped on their high bids and push the bids towards their max ceilings.

In hind sight, it might have been better to open the Sunday bidding as normal bidding for two hours and then start the extended bidding. As far as the extended bidding is concerned - what ever happened (close clean or shut down due to server issues), happened. Finality on Sunday, period.

Bidders would have had more than enough time to put in initial bids and perhaps larger ceiling bids if they really didn't want to get shut out prior to the close of the auction.

It's easy to play armchair quarterback...

[BeanTown]

So if you are high on a lot now you say CLOSE it down, auction over. If you are under bidder and ready to snipe and wait to the end, you say follow your rules for closing procedure. Goldin should open up for one day which includes regular bidding and then extended time. This will make consignors feel good, and allow all bidders a chance. No one should lose/win because of technical issues.

When are we going to hear what the plan is? We have been in pause mode for over a day

[Mark17]

People make plans. An auction house can't publicize a closing date, then start changing things because they aren't paying to have an adequately powered company service their auctions. There was an item I really wanted in the Heritage auction 2 weeks ago. They had lots divided into three groups, some closing Thursday, some Friday, some Saturday. My lot closed Friday and went smoothly (and I won my lot,) leaving the rest of the weekend free for other plans, which was important because I had an invitation to my buddy's fishing cabin in Wisconsin that weekend.

My point is, had the auction house delayed closing for another day, or two, it would've tied me up the entire weekend. That just isn't acceptable.

You can blame the people who run the auction software, and I get that, but bottom line, if it is YOUR business, then take the responsibility to come up with a game plan that works. Do what Heritage did, by closing lots on different days. Maybe divide it by sport (baseball one day, basketball the next, etc.) or category (cards one day, memorabilia the next.) Have smaller (but possibly more frequent) auctions. Hire a company with more robust servers.

It's happened enough times to enough different auction houses that all should be aware of the problem. In my opinion, it's the full responsibility of each auction house to be able to run and close their auctions on schedule. Otherwise it isn't fair to bidders or consignors, or their families.

[chalupacollects]

[QUOTE=Snapolit1;1981853]Don't blame the auctioneer? Ever? Really? Do they have an IT Department? Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms? Maybe I'm naive, but I think if you run an online business and your stems falls on its face you've dropped the ball.

Goldin sent out an email early Friday that said please don't wait to long to bid as they system might experience slowness near 10pm? Isn't this called being on notice that there are problems coming?

If Goldin sent out an email saying to bid early as they might experience a slowdown really sounds like they were expecting a problem...just saying...

[Snapolit1]

The heads up on slowness leapt off the page to me, because I have never heard an auction house say that before:


We strongly recommend that you do not wait until 9 pm to place initial bids. Despite our best efforts, the system may get slow due to volume right before 10 pm
– So please bid now!





[QUOTE=chalupacollects;1982101]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Don't blame the auctioneer? Ever? Really? Do they have an IT Department? Does the IT Department study and stress test different platforms? Maybe I'm naive, but I think if you run an online business and your stems falls on its face you've dropped the ball.

Goldin sent out an email early Friday that said please don't wait to long to bid as they system might experience slowness near 10pm? Isn't this called being on notice that there are problems coming?

If Goldin sent out an email saying to bid early as they might experience a slowdown really sounds like they were expecting a problem...just saying...

[Snapolit1]

On the bright side, saying our auction was so record breakingly popular it broke the system is not the worst publicity in the world for an AH.