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.

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?

Never.

The name eBID Storage Auctions was drawn up with no consideration of ibid4storage being a similar name.  I think we were aware of their existence, and also of the existing eBID site, but we wanted to capture the notion of online/electronic bidding for storage auctions, so we landed where we did. 

No affiliation whatsoever with the other auction site named eBID.

It's also a plus that when talking to customers / operators, we can just say "eBID".  Short.

It's funny, I don't know why, but I still have trouble remembering which way ibid4storage goes.  ibid?  ubid?  who bids?  I can never keep it straight.

Picked up a unit this morning, bid on one of those online storage auction websites (SB).  Got a pretty nice BMX bike and some other miscellaneous that needs to go out back to the dumpster.  It was my first storage auction buy.  I'd say I did pretty good for $20.

Travis's strategy confused me some. also.  I see the real value of this site is in the discussions that take place on these forums, and the incredible breadth of topics discussed here.  And with the dominance in google for "Online Storage Auctions", why not take down the Ad Choices ads, pivot to accept direct advertising from the growing list of sites offering online storage auctions, allow us to flagrantly promote our sites here, and make this the "#1 Community Resource for Storage Auction Enthusiasts" or some such.  The unique value proposition here is the community and discussions, not the auctions themselves.

I win at 300 and each other name is a link that I can click and talk to the other bidders.

Now, that's a killer feature.  Innovative and forward thinking.  As long as you clean out the unit as required, any resale arrangements facilitated through the site, after the fact, must be 100% legal - the transaction's long over at that point.  Perhaps SB/ST misconstrued how you wrote the question.

Travis with his murse.