Auctions End Too Late

[jhs5120]

Auctions end way too late. I had bids on all three auctions (Mears, Goldin and LOTG) and I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap at 11:30 PM.

A lot of items ended MUCH lower than they would have if the auctions ended at 11:00.

An example:

https://loveofthegameauctions.com/Lo...ventoryid=3939

I was outbid at 2:02 AM. TWO IN THE MORNING! Who the heck is up at two in the morning to bid on baseball memorabilia!?!?!?!?!

I would have brought the bidding to $4,000+ if I were awake. It's insane to have the bidding go until the end of the night, you're essentially eliminating all of the bidders who have a life.


That is all.

Jason

[edjs]

Jason, it is the west coast. 2 am to you is 11 pm to us. Then there are bidders in Hawaii, Alaska....

[honus94566]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

I would have brought the bidding to $4,000+ if I were awake. It's insane to have the bidding go until the end of the night, you're essentially eliminating all of the bidders who have a life.

I agree with your basic point, auctions do go so late it is kind of silly. But if you would have brought your bid to 4K if awake, why didn't you just set a max bid, and go to sleep? You don't have to be awake for your max bid to go to work for you

That's what I did, and won 3 of the 5 LOTG lots I was bidding on.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by honus94566

That's what I did, and won 3 of the 5 LOTG lots I was bidding on.

I put some max bids in, but never got an email notification if I had won or lost lol. Just check my account, and I won one of them



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Leon]

There is no definitive answer to this debate but my auction partner and I firmly believe there are more bids when folks know the end is in sight (and exactly when it is). Why not keep people interested the whole time? The days of all night auctions should come to an end, imo. And as a consignor I want everyone awake and bidding. Personally, I fell asleep, woke up and started bidding again around 130am this morning......that is crazy imo. If and when I sell my collection I will favor an auction house (if not my own) that will end lots individually. I want everyone awake and alert..... Just my opinion and I am not trying to disparage any auction house. I still bid in all of them but I end up bidding more when I stay awake and alert and "in the game".....rather than falling asleep before it ends.

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by Leon

There is no definitive answer to this debate but my auction partner and I firmly believe there are more bids when folks know the end is in sight. Why not keep people interested the whole time? The days of all night auctions should come to an end, imo. And as a consignor I want everyone awake and bidding. Personally, I fell asleep, woke up and started bidding again around 130am......that is crazy imo. If and when I sell my collection I will favor an auction house (if not my own) that will end lots individually. I want everyone awake and alert..... Just my opinion and I am not trying to disparage any auction house. I still bid in all of them but I end up bidding more when I stay awake and alert and "in the game".....rather than falling asleep before it ends.

+1

Thank you. I truly think they exclude a percentage of bidders who cannot stay awake past 2:00 AM. What type of transaction is conducted at 2:00AM?? Seriously, baseball card auctions are the only dealings I can think of that are conducted at TWO IN THE MORNING. If the rest of the known world has switched to a more sensible system, why haven't we?

And to anyone who would argue, "put in a max bid next time!" I don't trust auctions not to shill me. Not only that, I should not have to make a wild guess at where the auction will end just because there is the possibility someone will out bid me at TWO IN THE MORNING.

[T206Collector]

I agree with the OP. Lots should end individually when there are no further bids on that lot after 15 or 30 minutes. I prefer those auctions and bid more aggressively in them. I was asleep when I got outbid on the one lot I was interested in Goldin Auctions. Might've been a different story if the lot ended individually.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

+1

Thank you. I truly think they exclude a percentage of bidders who cannot stay awake past 2:00 AM. What type of transaction is conducted at 2:00AM?? Seriously, baseball card auctions are the only dealings I can think of that are conducted at TWO IN THE MORNING. If the rest of the known world has switched to a more sensible system, why haven't we?

You are making the assumption that the world lives within your hours. It does not. And I think your characterization that people who are up past 2 am have no life is... unfortunate.

I was a stock broker for 3 years before I had to retire. I worked the overnight shift, and I talked to clients all night. I placed trades all night. Why? Because I had clients living all over the world. There were American citizens all over the world. There are people in the military, American citizens, living all over the world, wherever they happen to be stationed at the time. There are people with dual citizenship that have homes in foreign countries, and they move back and forth between countries. There are people with jobs that travel a lot, and that travel will often extend beyond the contiguous 48 states. My ex-girlfriend was a model, and depending on where she was needed for a shoot, she could be in Milan, Paris, London or Chicago. There are other people, pilots, flight attendants, doctors, engineers, etc that will travel for work all over the world. Then there are people who go on vacation. Lots of Americans like to go to Europe, or Asia, or Australia, or South America. And, as was previously alluded to, your 2 am in New Jersey is 11pm in California. Your 2 am in New Jersey is 9 pm in Hawaii. All these people I mentioned don't suddenly stop conducting business at 2 am your time. We had at least 30 employees working overnight every night because there is a great demand for business being conducted during the time you are usually asleep.

If there is something in an auction that you have to own, put in your max bid price, and go to bed. If you are outbid, live with it.

If you are so worried about being shill bid, then stay up. Major auction houses like REA have two auctions a year. They publish the last day of the auction in big letters on their catalog. It's printed on their website, and it's listed on the Old Cardboard auction list, and I imagine other sites that cover the hobby like Cardboard Connection, Beckett, etc. You have vacation days, right? Use one if you absolutely have to have something, and you need to be there late to bid. Otherwise, don't, and wait for the item to come up again somewhere else. Or, just accept the fact that you were not meant to own the item. We don't always get what we want.

But to suggest that the entire industry change how it does business because you can't stay up a couple extra hours is absurd. I don't see the auction houses bemoaning lost revenue. They're breaking records left and right, and their consignors must be doing well, otherwise they wouldn't keep coming back.

Now you know there are other transactions being conducted at 2 am. Stock trades, ETF trades, options trades, futures trades. Lots is going on in the world while you are sleeping.

[the-illini]

Originally Posted by Leon

There is no definitive answer to this debate but my auction partner and I firmly believe there are more bids when folks know the end is in sight. Why not keep people interested the whole time? The days of all night auctions should come to an end, imo. And as a consignor I want everyone awake and bidding. Personally, I fell asleep, woke up and started bidding again around 130am this morning......that is crazy imo. If and when I sell my collection I will favor an auction house (if not my own) that will end lots individually. I want everyone awake and alert..... Just my opinion and I am not trying to disparage any auction house. I still bid in all of them but I end up bidding more when I stay awake and alert and "in the game".....rather than falling asleep before it ends.

Amen. Ending the lots individually is the way to go IMO.

[bcbgcbrcb]

Another vote for lots ending individually here. Maybe if enough of us speak up, more of the auction houses will go this route. At this point, it's still under 50% of the major auction houses.

[glynparson]

I usually just throw in my max bid and go to sleep.

[scooter729]

Another vote to have individual lot endings.

I don't throw in my max and go to bed, because I've seen and heard too many shilling stories to do that. Maybe I miss out on an item here or there, but life goes on.

[jefferyepayne]

I've been arguing for lot by lot closings of auctions for years now. Auction end times are getting more and more ridiculous. If you talk to auction houses, they will tell you they believe that lot by lot closings reduce the final prices they will get for items. I personally don't believe this and have never seen a study that shows this is true.

The only way this is going to change is for those who care to stop bidding on auctions that don't end lot by lot. I know that takes fortitude but if you want something to change, you need to be part of the solution instead of the problem.

I've been allocating more and more $$$ to auctions that close lot by lot in addition to completely refusing to place bids in auctions that include 1) owners who are in prison or 2) owners who have cheated little old ladies out of their retirement funds on tv.

It's time for this hobby to clean itself up. Are you part of the solution or the problem?

jeff

[bn2cardz]

I won three of the four lots I had bids in on. My max bids were set for a couple of weeks, with a couple of bumps made in the mean time and not a single bid placed yesterday. I have four children and am a Church goer so there was no way I could stay up. Turns out the one I lost was bid on at 1:15am Central time. That was the first bid on that lot in the last few days.

In that case a lot by lot situation would have been great. Forget 15 minutes, what about 48hours without a bid.

Oh well as Leon has said before there is no perfect solution, but I do think the lot by lot may be my current favorite. I only have to stay up long enough to watch my interested lots not get anymore bids for 15min.

I am still very happy with the three lots I did get, and won't sweat the one I didn't. Since it took that long for someone to bid I assume it was just a "too good of a deal" bid and it will be flipped soon enough and I will just try to pick it up then.

[barrysloate]

As someone who ran auctions for many years, this was always an issue that concerned me. The problem I see is there is nothing in the rules to compel bidders to place early bids. Many auction houses have initial bids close at 9:00 PM, but many bidders don't even start placing their final bids until the wee hours of the morning. Why should they? There is nothing in the rules that forces them to do so.

If there was a rule that stated "initial bids must be in by 9:00, and if you don't start bidding by 10:00 you will be disqualified from further bidding", everybody would bid early.

What I've discovered is auction houses for the most part don't really care. They are terrified of losing bids due to rules that are too stringent or too complicated. So they don't care if bidders have to stay up until 6:00 AM as long as that 6:00 AM bid puts a little more money in everyone's pocket.

It would be easy to come up with a system to end by 11:00 or midnight if auction houses were motivated to do so. But their only motivation is to get as many bids as possible. So it's unlikely the system will change much at all.

I always leave a ceiling bid and go to bed. I've taken the position that if I can't trust that the ceiling bid will be handled properly, then I shouldn't be bidding at all with that auction house. But I know this is a topic with a lot of different opinions.

[swarmee]

Select a dollar figure: $500, $1000, whatever. Close the ones that are under that dollar figure Lot-By-Lot. Anyone that has cleared that value at initial auction end time closes without a bid ON THAT ITEM within fifteen minutes.

On the high-value lots, they call go all night. But a bid on a $25 PSA 4 1961 common should not bump those auctions an additional 15 minutes. That's my recommendation.

[earlywynnfan]

I was actually up all night at work, so I got to watch the auctions close. But I tell you what, when I was outbid on an item in Goldin at 2:30 in the morning, I was pretty much numb and didn't even go back to up it one more bid. Which contrasts with MEARS, where I was going back-and-forth on many items for an hour.

Ken

[z28jd]

I don't think it's complicated at all. Initial bids in by 8pm, from 8-9 you can only bid on lots you bid on already, then make it a 5 min rule, not 15. You don't need to close lots individually if bids are coming in faster, eventually people will run out of things to bid on and with the shorter time, you don't have to wait for a couple people trying to wait others out by not bidding until the last second every 15 minutes. They could literally have four bids in an hour under the current rule. Knock it down to five minutes and those four bids can be made in 20 minutes.

Waiting 15 minutes for a bid is ridiculous and I've sat there and seen the clock reset with less than a minute multiple times.

[jhs5120]

After reading all of the comments, it seems like ending an auction at 3:00pm hurts consignors.

There is no person bidding at 3:00AM who cannot bid at 10:00PM, but there are hundreds of bidders who can bid at 10:00PM, but not 3:00AM.

[Al C.risafulli]

One of the reasons for all lots close at once is the ability to switch from lot to lot if you become outbid. For example, if you have three lots that you put bids out, but are currently losing on all 3, and have a $500 budget, you might first bid on the lot that you want most.

As a bidder, this is how I bid. I've got a budget, and sometimes I'm interested in more than one item in the auction. With auctions that close lot-by-lot, I lose the flexibility of being able to re-allocate money within my budget to other lots as I get outbid. I have won numerous lots in auctions this way over the years, and thus I prefer auctions that close all at once. I've been saying this on Net54 for years.

That said, as an auctioneer, I can definitely see the other side of the coin. I do receive phone calls from people every auction, asking what time I think the auction is going to stay open until. That said, I also receive bids. 20% of the dollars spent in yesterday's LOTG auction came from bids that were placed yesterday. I can't help but feel its a disservice to the consignor to shut the auction down before everyone who wants to place a bid has placed a bid, regardless of what time it is.

There's also the time zone issue. In my first auction, I went into extended bidding at 6PM eastern time. I received one wave of calls from west coast bidders who were unable to place bids because extended bidding started in the middle of the afternoon, and a second wave of calls from west coast bidders who were frustrated because they went out to dinner, came home and logged in to bid, and the auction was already closed.

It's for this reason that I'm with Jay - I strongly recommend using the max bid feature. Of course I understand why many people feel uncomfortable with this, and its unfortunate. We all want to participate in a hobby we can trust, and if we're not comfortable, it's awfully difficult to leave a max bid and walk away.

Definitely a complex issue with many different perspectives.

-Al

[t206hound]

The objective for the AH is to get as much money in bids as possible, not to have an auction drag on.

That said, the 15 minute rule (in my opinion) does not promote more bidding. In fact, it may slow it down. It can be as few as four bids in an hour.

I can't figure out why a 5 minute rule isn't in place for those auctions that close at once. 12 bids an hour sounds better than 4. In fact, I think that over time, that 'rule' should narrow, say 5 minutes until 11pm, then down to 2 minutes until midnight and then every 60 seconds thereafter.

[icollectDCsports]

I've been reading this thread and thinking about all of the options. I do think decreasing the 15 minute period makes sense. 10 probably good. 5 may be too little, especially for folks dealing with multiple items in an auction (almost never the case for me).

[1952boyntoncollector]

if you cant trust an auction to shill you then you really shouldnt bid at the auction

the bidding slots really allow you to place a max bid..on the expensive items you can usually bid in a bidding slot..where the next bidding slot would clearly put the card over teh average past sale by hundreds or even a thousand dollars on big value cards....its not like ebay where you can lose an item by 40 bucks with a last second bid or even lose by a dollar etc...the next bidder really has to poney up for the next bidding slot..

your perceived value of a card shouldnt change just becasue someone else bid on a card making you want to bid higher than your preceived value...if you just place a max bid then you dont have to worry about the impulse bids....

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

if you cant trust an auction to shill you then you really shouldnt bid at the auction

the bidding slots really allow you to place a max bid..on the expensive items you can usually bid in a bidding slot..where the next bidding slot would clearly put the card over teh average past sale by hundreds or even a thousand dollars on big value cards....its not like ebay where you can lose an item by 40 bucks with a last second bid or even lose by a dollar etc...the next bidder really has to poney up for the next bidding slot..

your perceived value of a card shouldnt change just becasue someone else bid on a card making you want to bid higher than your preceived value...if you just place a max bid then you dont have to worry about the impulse bids....

Impulse bids. The bain of my existence. Both when I do it and when others do it to me.

Tom C

[bxb]

I still say whoever bids last has the advantage.

Yes I could just leave a max bid and go to sleep but sometimes I change my mind and might bid higher than my previous max and this format takes away that option from me.

Yes like someone said I could just stay awake all night and wait to be outbid but that is just not realistic, and why should only east coast guys have to do that, it results in an unfair playing field if the west guys don't have to do that too.

And yes I could just stop whining and suck it up but I like to whine.