Ridiculous
Hey Russ, gotta tell ya that Iām not a fan of this either. The one thing I can count on is that when time runs out I know the wine that I bid on is mine.
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If you make use of the āAdd to Watchlistā feature you can easily keep track of everything you are interested in.
- Add auction lots to your Watchlist (or bid on the lot)
- Click on āMy Accountā
- Click on āAuctions - Buyingā in the āAuctionsā section of āMy Accountā
- Voila! You can then view the list of lots you are bidding on. You can also view the list of the lots on your Watchlist.
Super easy, and Iām pretty sure this is exactly what youāre looking for.
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This feature is definitely needed if the site is overloaded and timely bids are being rejected. That final minute is when competitive lots reach their market price. If bids arenāt being taken, itās not an auction.
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+1. This functionality prevents sniping and maximizes hammer price. Adding 10 minutes just adds 10 minutes, and does not materially change anything.
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Adding 10 minutes will just shift that āfinal minuteā to 10 minutes later, where the same problem will still exist (assuming it was happening in the first place).
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I agree they are headed the wrong direction with this but itās also the case that as the price goes up, the number of bidders will decrease and the traffic problem resolves itself. CalAuctions has pretty much the same approach; any bid during the last minute of the auction extends the auction by another minute. Spectrum will accept bids after the bell if their site becomes overloaded.
Itās seems pretty clear to me that WB doesnāt have it together in multiple respects. Oh, well. There are plenty of other sites to list and shop on.
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This just inā¦the Indianapolis 500 is now the Indianapolis 500.5.
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thereās only one person on this thread that theoretically knows how this will work. that person posted some of what he knows, but wants you to reserve judgment on the rest of it becauseā¦reasons. the internet is weird.
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Agreed that a āgoing live featureā at auction ending is likely to actually improve the experience AND maximize hammer prices on certain lots. Probably a bigger IT lift, though.
The real āgoalā here seems to be minimizing lots selling below market price. Thatās clearly in the best interest of not only WB but also their sellers, but it kinda craps on the reason lots of folks like online auctions ā the ability to throw a minimum reserve bid out there and maybe get lucky. If the pool of buyers decreases, does that shift the demand curve enough to balance out the potential bump on the most competitive lots? Guess weāll find out based on whether or not the new feature sticks.
Luckily, there are a hatful of other places to buy wine. WineBidās final cost was close to the same amount of dosh on WineSearcher already, and now thereās a chance to jack it up even more. No thank you.
Wowāthis sounds great. For WineBid, that is.
An auction companyās job, in part, is to maximize hammer price; I donāt hold it against WineBid that they would try to do that. It just seems to me the best way to do that would be adding 30 seconds, or a minute, to the bidding every time a bid comes-in in the last 30 seconds or minute. This is, essentially, how live auctions work (i.e.: "going once, going twice, Ahhh, we have a new bid! Now weāre at $__. Going once, going twice ā¦ sold!).
As for the ādecreased number of biddersā argument: Yes. The number of bidders will decrease by the number who only want to participate in auctions where sniping is allowed. I know many folks like sniping. I sometimes do it myself. Itās exciting. But if thereās a wine I want, thereās a price Iām willing to pay, and Iāll bid up to that price regardless of whether the format does or does not allow for sniping.
Sniping only works when the bidding is between snipers.
Russ is getting beaten up pretty well, but he ālikesā many of those postsā¦
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Not a fan. Echoing previous comments. And it is already late enough on a āschool nightā on the east coastā¦
As someone with lots of bottles in the current auction, Iām very curious to see how much bidding changes prices (and the number of contested lots) in the last hour and minutes of the auction. That will give me a better sense of how common sniping is.
If Winebid changes the rules of the auction in a way that reduces the number of bidders, prices for sellers could fall relative to other sources. Way too early to say.
My post. Thought I was logged inā¦
Thatās weird ā¦ are posts by āGuestā now allowed? That must be a bug.
I donāt really see how this is about sniping. Not at all. Itās about having a time when a transaction will end. The sniping is just people coming in at the end. Sniping has nothing materially to do with how the auction is executed.
Whatās at issue is that we know when an auction will end and we know itās on us to get in there or not if we want action. Now there is some other mysterious possibly end time that may or may not show up. So we have a transaction that will occur at the listed time or it might occur at another time. Do we have any control over it? Do we have any say in it if we want to do business there? Does my bid mean anything or is it subject to an algorithm that will shrug at it?
First world problems for certain but it feels like yet one more annoyance in life we could do without. What percentage of the customer base is really clamoring for this?
Iāll wait to see how itās executed before casting judgement, but as a practical matter will peopleās max bids on lots carry over into this overtime bidding, or will it only be for people participating during that period? For example, if a lotās current winning bid $50 and I set a max bid at $70, will that $70 bid continue to hold for that extended period if participants post 7pm bid higher than $50?
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