What does a “timed auction” mean and how does it work?
Our next auction will be what is called a timed auction.
When this auction is posted live on our website and app—in this case, that will be 12 noon (CST) on February 15th– interested parties my register and place bids at any time for the following 10 days. Bids are executed automatically and competitively by our platform, so you should bid your maximum bid (that does not mean you will pay that much—only one bid more than the next highest bid). There will be starting bids like normal, and you must bid at least that much. If nobody else bids on that lot, you will win it at that price. To be clear, if the starting bid is $500 and you are willing to pay $1,000, I suggest bidding $1,000 (not $500). If there are no other bids, you will only pay $500 anyway. If you bid less than you are willing to pay in the end, it will be necessary for you to monitor the lot until the very second (literally) it sells or someone else may bid $550 and take it away from you. There was incredible activity among bidders as lots started to close in our August timed auction.
LOTS will begin to close in sequence at 12 noon (CST) on February 25th for this auction. There will be no live auction—no telephone bids, no bids from other platforms.
If a bid is placed on a lot within the last minute of it closing, the lot automatically becomes extended for another 60 seconds. The idea behind this is to avoid someone getting cutoff while trying to bid—however, the exact same thing can happen at the end of the extension period, and so on and so on…. My guess is that most of the lots will just end according to plan, but there will be some that get extended. Each lot pictured in the catalog will have a timer counting down to the close, so you will know exactly when that lot will sell. Even if preceding lots go through several extensions, each lot will stay on schedule, so they may overlap sometimes. ALL of this is controlled by the computer platform so there is no margin of human error. The benefit to having the lots closing staggered like this is that if you do not get a lot which comes up early, you might then want to bid on a lot later on. It also allows you to manage the total amount you spend in the auction. You may place your bids as soon as the catalog is posted and never look at it again, but don’t be surprised if things change dramatically in the last few days and even once the lots start to close.
Finally, this auction works equally well on the website or our app all the way up till lots start to close; then, by the nature of the programming, it works much better on the mobile app. I am not tech savvy, so don’t ask me why—but the guys inventing all of this stuff say it is so. That does not mean you cannot do it on the website but that is something that has been suggested to me; also, refresh your page OFTEN once lots start to close. It is because of the timers. Ideally do it after every lot—but that is only if you are interested in each lot—otherwise just as often as you think about it. It will not cause any problems or you will not accidentally bid or anything—it will just keep all the timer sequences in order.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us. We are happy to help! If you are having trouble placing bids, we can easily help you out—but please contact us as early as you can (once the lots start to close it will be more difficult to help many people at once, and when time is short).