I get that its a bit yelling at clouds, but imo that format in nonsensical. I missed some items I was going to be aggressive on because they sold while I concentrating on others expering in seconds at the top of page - to hard to look everwhere an once. That's sub-optimal for the auctioneer and seller. While there may be disadvantages I haven't thought of, I would think the sorting done strictly on time left would make a lot more sense (yes, I have 1G and 2 monitors....its a biological bandwidth issue). The solution is so easy - give a user a sort option; lot# or time remaining.
I don't think we're going back in person auctions. Covid accelerated the small time online auctions, but I think its here to stay. The digital format has given these little guys some real reach; if you were the seller, wouldn't insist on hiring a firm that could have the whole country watching and buying like last evening? Also, it appeals a bit to myopic psychology (we all suffer from to some degree)....you bid in comfort and don't have to brave the traffic/weather until later.
The part that is missing though is the inspection. In some cases substantial premiums were paid (over new even) yet the buyer has no idea the real condition. That's called risk and overall should incline the buyer to discount the item. (Commercial auctions almost always have inspections, but some dropped it with Covid) I kind of doubt it, but hope that happens - bring in an inspection time once we're past Covid. I think its in the buyers and sellers interests, its not so much in the auctioneers so don't hold your breath
HiBid is designed to try to prevent eBay-style sniping with the automatic time extensions. AFAICT, they want you to put in your max bid sometime ahead of the closing and then find out later if you won or not. Most of us, however, are programmed by experience to only want to input the next bid increment. Obviously, you can do that but the system design is then working against you.
The auction would not be easier to follow if the sort order was strictly on time remaining. Any item that got an extension in the last 2 minutes would jump to different place in the list. I don't think this would make it any easier to follow. The only way to keep sane is put in your max bid. Sometimes, when I have revised my bid near the end, I have gone 2 or 3 bid increments above the current bid. So if the other guy responds, I'm still the high bidder. Obviously, if you put in an insanely high max bid, you will always 'win'. The second place bidder determines how much you pay.
For me, the problem now is that I don't trust HiBid after they were hacked. They have done everything they could to sweep that problem under the rug. So now, I have to question whether they have other shoddy business practises. For example, can auctioneers see my max bid? Can they place 'phantom' bids to run me up to the max? They shouldn't be able to but now I have evidence that HiBid is a unethical company. I did not bid last night for this reason.
There are still a few in-person auctions, here's an example scheduled for Saturday (Oct 23):
http://www.sure-bid.ca/upcoming-auctions.html
But I agree that the vast majority of sales are online and likely to stay there. Most of the online sales do have a preview but my impression is that few people actually do it.
Craig
