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eBay Live Auctions

I have always wondered about eBay live auctions. If you are not familiar with the live auction format, some bidders bid online using eBay, and other bidders bid in person at a live auction. I assumed the high eBay bidder was the only one who bid at the live auction. This isn't the case. Evidently the auctioneer has assistants on the floor bidding for the different eBay bidders.

I never bid on eBay live Auctions before because I didn't like the additional rules, and was unsure how the live auction format worked. I decided to bid on a few items and use it as a learning experience.

Registering For An eBay Live Auction

In order to bid online for a eBay live auction lot, you need to register for the live auction. This just means you need to read and affirm the special rules. In this live auction, there was a 17.5 percent buyer's premium and some shipping information.

It was actually easy to sign up for the live auction on eBay, but it wasn't just a matter of reading the specific rules. In this live auction, the seller approved all bidders. I don't know what this means. Maybe they checked my eBay feedback, maybe they just approved my registration automatically?

Bidding on eBay Live Auctions

A few hours after registering, I got a confirmation email from eBay telling me I could bid. So I went online and started bidding. I had already added a few dozen items I wanted to bid on to my "My eBay Buying" page, so it was easy to go back and bid on items and watch the results.

Bidding on a live auction is just like bidding on a regular eBay auction except the bid increments are different. I usually bid in odd amounts in order to increase my chances of beating other bidders. For example, instead of bidding $50.00, I will bid $52.77 or some other amount with pennies. When bidding online for a live auction, you cannot bid in pennies. In one case, eBay rejected a bid of $1215.00, and suggested bidding either $1200 or $1250.

I bid on 21 lots in the eBay live auction. I only bought one item, but I bid low prices more to find out how a live auction worked than to actually buy something. I bid between 30 and 40 percent of what I felt the items were worth.

This way if I bought anything during the live auction, I'd get a great deal. On two items, I bid higher percentages because I wanted them for my collection. Both went for about a hundred dollars above my bid, and I regret not bidding more. Next time, I will bid more appropriately on items I want to keep.

Anyway, I am more confused now than I was before, but I am optimistic. I will bid on more eBay live auctions in the future.

eBay Live Auctions Are Addicting

You see, the one item I bought was cheap, and there were many other items that went for just over my low bids. A lot of the items I didn't bid on went for much less than I would have bid. I think this is because the live auction was held on two days. The Friday items went cheap, and sold mostly to eBay bidders.

The Saturday part of the auction brought higher, more realistic prices and most of the lots went to floor bidders. None of the bids I made for Saturday lots was even close to the hammer price. This makes some sense.

There probably was a much bigger live audience at the live auction on Saturday.

I think this was a good experience. I wish the auctioneers would do a better job with the online pictures, but, at least in this case, the auction house does know how to grade the items so the descriptions provide good information.

I think the most eBay live auctions have poor pictures because it takes time to set up all those auctions. The auction houses using eBay just aren't set up to handle the listing chores. I know this will change in the future, as the auctioneers start considering eBay as a selling venue rather than an advertising medium.

Note: most eBay live auctions I have seen have poor pictures and poor descriptions. This lack of adequate information means there is too much risk. See the free eBay Buyer's Guide for more information about risks in online auctions

Overall the experience with an ebay live auction was a good one. I will participate again, and particularly keep an eye out for auctions held during the week.

PS. Some people worry about shill bidding. It seems like it would be easy for the live auctioneer to manipulate the results. After all, he knows the high bids of the eBay bidders. I don't think shill bidding happened in this auction because the item I bought went for much below my high bid.

I'll write more about shill bidding in a future article.

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Terry Gibbs has taught over 7,000 people how to make a good living on eBay. Terry's most recent eBay instruction manual is The Auction Revolution . The Auction Revolution is your guide to eBay and beyond. Here on Iwantcollectibles.com, you will learn about buying and selling antiques and collectibles, and about eBay.