Subject: Re: Online Auctions To: dnoack@mhv.net (David Noack) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 22:04:04 +2000 (EDT) [David Noack was the Interviewer, for a newspaper in the Northeast] Q. Maybe you can tell me from your experience about the growth/popularity of online auctions? A. Auctions have been around since I can remember. There are two types of auctions. There is the trade auction where people trade items for items. The other type of auction is the money auction, where people bid cash for item(s). Q. What is in it for whom? The auction house? A. There have been no auction houses on Internet. I am only just now seeing a companies sponsor auctions on the WWW [See the site: http://www.sportstrade.com]. For the most part, only indivduals run auctions on Internet. Q. The people participating in the auction? A. Clearly, the people participating have something to gain from the auction. Whether it be a out of print Magic: The Gathering Card, or an old baseball card. Auctions can be a means to acquire items, you might not see anywhere else. Q. What is the attraction of an online auction? Convenience? Less cost to the auction house? Wider audience? > A. The attraction of auctions are many. Convenience is a big factor for the buyer. Online auctions can take hours to run, update, and answering peoples' questions. Cost is questionable. The only costs involved are the seller's time spent on the auction and his or her connection fees. Buyers spend even less time. Buyers only need to reply to new bids and in some cases, the seller will even send the auction updates to buyer by email. The Internet is multinational. What may not be worth anything locally may be worth any price you ask in another location. Take Star Wars toys, I sold some Star Wars items for well over $200 each to an individual in Europe [The toys were not in the box, which can add a lot to the value]. The individual commented that the toys were not available in Europe and worth every penny he had paid for them. Q. What safeguards, if any, are in place to protect people from getting something less than they bid for? A. There are few safeguards concerning auctions on Internet. For, the most part people are honest. I have traded, sold, and purchased $1000s of items over the last 10 years and only been burned a hand full of times (~10 times). People can and do make mistakes, and buyers for the most part can expect, the seller to correct the problem. I have forgotten to spend some items, by mistake, myself. I was contracted by the buyer, and once I checked my records, and sent the items out asap. Q. How can people tell if the items they bid on are the same ones they have seen in a .gif or something? A. To be honest, I have not seen any auctions that have used .gif files in them. So, I can not really comment on this. Q. Wouldn't people rather see the piece in the "flesh" so they can make a better evaluation of whether they even want to bid on an item? > A. Some people prefer to see the item in the fresh. Most people that run auctions carefully list the item, its condition, and any particulars. A great deal of time can be spent on grading items. People can question the grading, and that's part of what the buyer has to deal with, while running the auction. Q. Since online auctions usually take some time to conduct, do people become impatient or just accept that fact? A. Most people understand this fact. Most people set clear time periods, that the auction will run. Yes, some people can get upset, but that's part of what you can and have to deal with when running an online auction. Q. What are some of the advantages/disadvantages of online auctions? > A. Advantages can be twofold. For the buyer, it can be low prices, little time spent finding items or bidding on them, the vast number of auctions that exist on Internet. On Internet, pricing can be different than elsewhere. In general, prices are lower, as there are great number of auctions occurring at one time. Time factors have been mentioned elsewhere. Let's face it, once one person sells an item for good money, others will jump on the bandwagon and start selling items. It can be a buyers market, expect for the rarest or hardest to find items. For the seller, the advantages are cash, a diverse audience, and a reputation. The first two items, I have covered elsewhere. A reputation is very important on Internet. It's the closest thing to a guarantee, that a buyer can get on Internet. Q.What tips/suggestions do you have for people seeking to participate in an online auction? A. Know your prices. Have a good feeling for what the current prices on Internet are for the given item of interest. Ask seller for references. References are other people the seller has dealt with in the past. If the seller is dishonest, this is one way to find out. The other way is to ask around on Usenet NewsGroups or Email Lists. Good Seller/Bad Seller lists can be found that way. Be patience. Know the limits of how much you wish to spend. People in auctions can go crazy and overbid on items. Ask Questions. Most sellers will be happy to answer whatever questions, you might have about an item or the auction itself. > Q. Do most of the same rules apply, whether its to an online or regular auction, in terms of authenticity and other issues. A. Every auction will have different rules. This is because everyone is different ;-) There are a few common items: The length of the auction, Min and Max [Buy Out] bids, and the famous God clause. The god clause is simply "I can do what I want, when I want". This is used to remove items from auction, stop the auction at anytime, or sell the item at anytime. This is used because, the seller does not want to think about all the possible rules or problems that might occur. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please include a little info about yourself, your involvement with auctions and online auctions, your town/city, age and a generic description of your current occupation. My name is Craig Janssen. I have been on Internet for over 11 years. I have been involved with auctions for quite sometime. I have sold and purchased everything from baseball cards to computer equipment. Recently, I became involved with Wizards of the Coast as a playtester. Later, I started working for Scrye magazine as the Internet Representative. I have written an article on auctions called "How to run an Internet Auction" for Scrye magazine issue #2. I am currently living in Melbourne, Florida. I am 32 years old, and am process of acquiring a degree in Computer Information System Analysis. I work, part time, as a consultant for a local Internet Service Provider and as a teaching/lab assistant. I own and operate Daili's Collectibles [http://www.gate.net/~daili/daili.htm], as a result of Magic: The Gathering auctions, that I have run.