Higgins and Scott Auction bid increments good for the buyer, bad for the consigner

[BobC]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

I agree with this and want to reiterate how important bidding is during extended hours. The more people that have already bid on an item, the better chance of a bidding war in after hours. And obviously there will be more people eligible to bid if there are smaller bid increments. For the same reason, I don't think it is in the consigner's interest to allow "straight bids" as a bidder can bid up the price in one fell swoop and prevent anyone else from getting in bids at lower prices.

Charles, That is a great point about making significant "straight bids" early on. Any AH allowing that would let a bidder be able to significantly deter potential competition in many cases.

In fact, if an AH were smart, what they would do is actually decrease the bidding increments the farther into extended bidding an auction runs. Someone faced with having to make a $500 bid to take over the lead is going to be a lot less likely to bid than if they only have to bid $50 to take the lead in bidding. It is easier for someone in their minds to justify continuing to bid when the increment is small, simple human nature. Would likely eke out a lot of higher ending prices for the consignors, across the board.

[Empty77]

But regardless of whether those changes would be good for buyer or seller, it would definitely be bad for human health; some of those events already go until 4 or 5AM ET. It's already madness.

[JustinD]

I didn’t realize this chat was going on in multiple spots till Bob pointed it out.

I think the thinking in this one is a lot more in line with actual studies on psychology versus the auction house thinking with greed instead of logic. Those with ridiculous bid jumps are leaving money on the table far more than not.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by JustinD

I didn’t realize this chat was going on in multiple spots till Bob pointed it out.

I think the thinking in this one is a lot more in line with actual studies on psychology versus the auction house thinking with greed instead of logic. Those with ridiculous bid jumps are leaving money on the table far more than not.

Justin,

I think it might even be a combination of psychology on the part of the bidders AND greed on the part of the auction houses. Still, as I already pointed out in one of these two threads, I am a bit amazed that so far none of these online auction houses has done as most live auctioneers will do, and cut the bidding increments as the bidding for a particular auction lot winds down. Shouldn't be that difficult to program into software. Who knows, with the various AH owners on here, maybe some will see these posts and start hitting up their software providers for such a change. Would make sense to me at least.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Empty77

But regardless of whether those changes would be good for buyer or seller, it would definitely be bad for human health; some of those events already go until 4 or 5AM ET. It's already madness.

Can't argue with that at all. But most people look at us card collecting junkies as weird to begin with, so they're not going to have any sympathy. LOL

In truth, I don't think it would really make things that much worse overall. On a few items here and there with a couple of dedicated bidders, you'll likely always have some auction lots like that. Just depends on how the AH has their bidding terms and rules set up, and if they are conducive to creating some long, drawn-out auction lots like that.