How To Bid
Do You Have Any Assets To Sell?
Introduction
Bidding online is much the same as bidding for an item in our auction room in the real world. But for those of you who have not taken part in an online auction this page will address how the process works. We have broken it down in to some bite-size sections for you:
1. Bidding
2. Tracking your own bidding history
3. Have I won?
4. Finding lots
5. Paying For Lots
The one interesting feature to note on our site is that bidding updates in real time. This means you do not have to reload or refresh the page to find out what the current highest bid is. The page will update automatically every three seconds. This means your winning and losing status will be updated in real time as bids are entered by other users against your own bids.
1. Bidding
The most important part of an auction is the bidding. This online auction site works as a forward auction. This means bidding for an item starts with an opening price determined by the auctioneer and bids are placed by bidders in increments above the previous bid. At the end of the auction, the highest bid wins.
To bid in the first place you have to register with us. This means we know who you are and that you understand and accept our terms & conditions. Once your registration has been accepted you can begin bidding.
Bidding is made in one of two ways. You either bid at the next increment by pressing the “Bid” button and then pressing “Confirm” to confirm you wish to place the bid, Or you can enter a Max Bid. When you enter a Max Bid the software will automatically bid on your behalf against a reserve price or a competing bidder up to your Max Bid amount.
Max Bidding also gives you the opportunity to set your highest desired purchase price and then sit back and wait to see if you were able to secure the lot at that price.
Overtime Bidding
If you bid in the final few minutes of an auction, the auction may go into overtime bidding. This means the auction end-time will be extended for a specified amount of time, usually 10 minutes. If another bid is placed inside the final 10 minutes, it will keep extending until no higher bids are made.
This replicates the experience of a live auction room. With a fixed cut-off time, items are won by the buyer who clicks the bid button last, whereas overtime bidding means the item is sold to the bidder who is willing to pay the highest amount.
2. Tracking Your Own Bidding History
If you wish to concentrate on just the lots you are bidding on go to the My Items section and track just those items. This means you will be able to focus on bidding on those items you are not winning. The history page will update in real time as bidding progresses.
3. Have I Won?
Once the auction has finished you will want to know whether you have won or lost the items you were interested in purchasing. You can go to the My Items section and click on “Items Won” from here you can also view “Items Not Won”
4. Finding Lots
Finding the items you are interested in is very important to you. Depending upon your preference you can approach this in different ways.
Search – you can search for lots using the search tool below the main menu in the centre of all pages. Enter key words relating to the items you wish to find and press “Search”. If you wish to refine your search by category then you can do so by selecting lot category from the drop down list next to the search box.
Once you have found a lot which is of interest we suggest you click the “Add To Watchlist” tab once you have done this all of your watched items will be in the My Items section
5. Paying For Lots
Once you have won your lots in the auction you will need to pay for them, when the auction has finished an invoice will be generated which you can view in the Invoices section, from there you can print or save the invoice for your records.