LOTG Auctions closing rules

[rand1com]

Originally Posted by Al C.risafulli

Hey there!

Just happened to see this post, so I thought I'd chime in.

It's really a misconception that our auction is open til 3am.

90% of our auction is closed by 1am, and that's a pretty consistent percentage with each auction. At 1am, we close off every lot that has not been receiving bids.

The rest of the auction remains open for as long as bidders feel they want to bid. It's not us keeping those lots open, it's the people bidding on them. Since it's our job as an auction house to give our consignors every possible opportunity for their consignments to do well, we want to make sure that every bidder gets every opportunity to place the bids they want to place, and not to have them get shut out by a clock, or because a lot they were bidding on closed while they were trying to win a different item, or for some other reason.

The reality is that at 3am, there were a couple dozen out of 2100 lots that were still receiving bids. That's a pretty low percentage. We had an auction that was able to close out 90% of the lots by 1am with no issues, and then leave the remaining lots open as bidding dwindled down until there were just a few items receiving bids.

For folks not interested in sitting by their computer to watch the auction, we've got an auto-bid feature that allows you to leave a max bid and walk away (we do not shill our auctions, the auction house or its employees don't bid in the auctions, and we don't have hidden reserves, so you can trust this system). Also, you have the ability to receive outbid notices by text message so that you don't have to constantly refresh a screen all night.

Basically, we try and make it so that there's really no reason for you to stay up all night and watch this auction, unless you're actively bidding on one of the lots that is receiving bids!

Best,
-Al

Thanks for a thorough explanation. I still like the 11PM cutoff with each lot on a 15 minute close with no bids but if 90% end at 1AM then I guess that is acceptable.

Like others have stated, I really like your auction and integrity and it is impossible to please all consignors and bidders on every issue but overall LOTG does an outstanding job in the auction world. Thanks for that!

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by rand1com

Thanks for a thorough explanation. I still like the 11PM cutoff with each lot on a 15 minute close with no bids but if 90% end at 1AM then I guess that is acceptable.

Like others have stated, I really like your auction and integrity and it is impossible to please all consignors and bidders on every issue but overall LOTG does an outstanding job in the auction world. Thanks for that!

This would be my preference as well. I'd definitely prefer an earlier close time.

And I definitely agree with the second statement.

[ValKehl]

Al, I realize that you are totally wedded to your auction closing method, which I and others don't especially care for because of how long your auctions run into Sunday mornings. I think this issue would be significantly bettered if you would merely begin your auction-closing process 2 hours earlier, but keep the same time intervals - i.e., 9 p.m. EST becomes 7 pm, 12 midnight becomes 10 p.m., and 1 a.m. becomes 11 p.m.

Al, I assume you have already become aware from a post in the LOTG pickup thread that the 1921 Tip Top Bread card of Lefty Grove that sold for about $40K would have sold for more, perhaps significantly more, if an avid pursuer of it hadn't fallen asleep. And, I doubt that your consignor of this card is thrilled to learn this. Yes, I realize that a bidder can safely leave a max bid because your integrity is of the highest level, but you should realize that many collectors just can't bring ourselves to leave max bids. I am one such collector, and I was bidding on a gotta-have card; at 1:30 a.m. my tired 81-year-old body was about to fall asleep at my PC; so, I decided WTF and put in a max bid and went to bed; yes, I did win this gotta-have card.

[benjulmag]

My issue with an AH rationalizing a 3am closing time by saying a bidder can leave a max bid whenever that bidder decides he wants to go to sleep is that such a max bid might not reflect how high the bidder will really go once he/she learns he/she has been outbid. This concern is not mere theorizing, but reflects how humans function. There have been numerous occasions, this LOTG auction being the most recent, where I ended up bidding substantially higher than I originally intended. I believe it is a human trait for a person, upon learning he/she has been outbid, to cause that person to reconsider how high he/she will be willing to bid. In the end the person might not change his/her bid; but I believe in many occasions he/she will. That is why, whenever anybody asks me how high I will be willing to bid for an item, to respond by saying I won't know until I am faced with the prospect of being outbid.

In this most recent LOTG auction, I won the lot I did by staying up to 3am. The earlier max bid I placed, after which I went to bed, only to wake up before the auction ended, I ended up raising by several intervals once I learned I had been outbid.

I would respectfully ask Al to consider, as a previous poster suggested, moving the entire ending process up by 2 or 3 hours. That way the AH can give all its bidders the chance to bid on other lots once they have been outbid on a previous more-favored lot (something over the years I have done a number of times (and being grateful the closing format allowed me to do that)), but at the same time allow bidders to go to sleep at some reasonable hour knowing that the auction has closed.