Got an email from the site I normally bid online about extending ending time

I logged in this morning and got notice about ending times being extended... Sure I have lost auctions because of this last minute snipping... but It's all fair that way.. I don't really like the extended times.. All I can see that doing is driving up my costs...

I know huh, it's good if you're selling, but bad if you're buying. They're like the anti-eBay site, where eBay caters to the buyers these type of sites cater to the seller.

All it takes for an auctioneer to say "going once, twice, sold" is less then 10 seconds..

So their pretend excuse is flawed, buy advancing the timer 3 minutes.

In a real auction settings, the auctioneer, just wants to move through the lockers as fast as possible, fill out the paperwork, and go home.

I have to agree here, I am very worried about SB switching to this soft close junk. And like someone else said, it only benefits the sellers. Will be interesting to see how much this affects the prices. I have gotten some great online units for cheap.

I for one will be OUT...  I'm not into this soft close thing at all..  They have lost my buyers fees...

I like things to be over when they are over...  It also takes the fun and skill out it..

Does SB have live, in-page updates if you're viewing the auction and someone else bids?  How do you know the soft-close has kicked in, unless you refresh the page?

@ebids

Yeah, the countdown timer was always counting down on the page. But I never bid on an auction yet in the new system to see how it reacts.

And besides, I buy units online and since I buy units online, I make Facilities and SB monies.

I refuse to sign up to your site, until you allow guest to view active auctions on your site. I'm also guessing you conceal that information, because you most likely don't have very many active actions.

When you change your site, you'll have one more active bidder. But you'll have to PM - Because I won't even look to see.

FYI - not sure if you got it was SB...  Oh well time to get off my ...  and get to live auctions now.. The whole point of a Proxy bid is so you don't get out bid a the end...  Now people could just run you up to be running you up..

I refuse to sign up to your site, until you allow guest to view active auctions on your site. I'm also guessing you conceal that information, because you most likely don't have very many active actions.

We're not trying to conceal anything, we're just using a different strategy to present only auctions that are relevant to each user.  We're requiring users to login so we can show them auctions close to them, and only those auctions.  We think it makes for a faster, cleaner, and easier user experience instead of showing auctions in Colorado on the homepage to a user in Miami.  We're just localizing, that's all.

But we appreciate your feedback and respect your opinion.

I think iBid4Storage uses a soft close as well. There is no doubt that soft closes benefit the seller.

Different auctions require different sales styles and techniques, which is why we allow buy it now, make offer, reserve bids, etc. We actually included an optional soft close into our code, but we haven't enabled it yet. Ultimately, I think the seller should have the right to choose which auction style is best for them.

We're not trying to conceal anything, we're just using a different strategy to present only auctions that are relevant to each user.  We're requiring users to login so we can show them auctions close to them, and only those auctions.  We think it makes for a faster, cleaner, and easier user experience instead of showing auctions in Colorado on the homepage to a user in Miami.  We're just localizing, that's all.

But we appreciate your feedback and respect your opinion.

You can localize off IP and if they sign up and willing to give you additional information like a zip code that's fine then localize off the zip.

By preventing people from accessing your site, you have the be the most uneducated site owner in the world.  You are also prevent search engines from crawling additional content pages, which also prevents you from getting organic traffic. This prevents you from acquiring new customers at a faster rate..

It's just retarded in my opinion..

By preventing people from accessing your site, you have the be the most uneducated site owner in the world.

Confucius says: Use proper grammar when insulting someone's intelligence.

Not really, I just made that up. 

You are also prevent search engines from crawling additional content pages, which also prevents you from getting organic traffic. This prevents you from acquiring new customers at a faster rate..

His site is relatively new and it's safe to assume that there aren't a lot of auctions listed at this time. There's nothing wrong with that though. Heck, we're the largest storage auction website in the world and it's been difficult for us to attract storage clients. That being said, having a few auction pages crawled (which will likely never be indexed anyway due to their thin content) pales in comparison to the higher than average conversion rate I'm sure he has.

Requiring registration upfront is actually a smart move on his part. This way, he captures the contact information of almost every visitor. If I would have implemented the same strategy on OSA a year ago, we'd probably have a 100K more registered users today.

my issue as a seller is that its an indefinite 3 minute extension.  If I am posting multiple auctions and they all end within 10 minutes of each other I'm losing bidders to my second auction because they will be too busy hitting refresh to see if the extension has been activated.

My issue as a bidder is that a 3 minute extension is ridiculous.  If an auctioneer waited 3 minutes after the last bid to close it no one would show up to their auctions any more.

They will learn the lesson and switch back soon enough.

These are good points.  The auctions on eBID Storage Auctions have live data in the page, no refresh needed.  Maybe a 15 second "Going Once..." period if a bid is placed within the last 15 seconds would by a good compromise.  I'm not sure how much very-last-second bidding takes place.  Obviously SB has data that shows it happens enough to try and capitalize on that action for their sellers.

Who knows if the long extension time would cause an auction close to bleed into the next one.  My guess is this would be rare.

It will be really interesting to see if eBID's upcoming mobile app creates more last-minute bidding.

my issue as a seller is that its an indefinite 3 minute extension.  If I am posting multiple auctions and they all end within 10 minutes of each other I'm losing bidders to my second auction because they will be too busy hitting refresh to see if the extension has been activated.

My issue as a bidder is that a 3 minute extension is ridiculous.  If an auctioneer waited 3 minutes after the last bid to close it no one would show up to their auctions any more.

They will learn the lesson and switch back soon enough.

I agree, very good points. I hadn't considered the impact soft closes would have on other auctions.