Timeless Auctions
Autobid, Sit Back And
Relax (Timeless Proxy Auctions)
Mitch, Web Developer & Blogger at Timeless Auctions
05 January 2022
An auction with proxy/auto bidding allows buyers to enter the highest possible bid amount that they are willing to pay in an auction.
The system will then automatically bid up to that maximum amount and not a cent over (at an automatic bid increment amount set by the auctioneer/seller who enabled the proxy bidding) whenever a new buyer bids higher.
If an auction has proxy/auto bidding enabled, the green button as shown in the screenshot below will be visible.
Screenshot 1Â
If you see the green button indicating that proxy bidding is enabled, you can enter your maximum bid amount in the bid section like in any normal auction and your proxy bid will be entered into our system, this is not visible to other bidders.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If an auction has a reserve price, auto-bidding does not start until the current bid is above the reserve price set for the auction. Manual bidding is thus required by auction participants until the reserve price is met and then auto-bidding will automatically kick in at any bids above the Reserve Price.
A Practical Example
In screenshot 1, you will see that the current bid is $800. As an interested buyer who is willing to pay up to $2000 for the product, you can enter $2000 as your proxy bid in the bid box.
The Timeless Auction system will now bid up to $2000 in the background BUT won’t reveal to other bidders that the maximum you are willing to pay is $2000. Please note that screenshot 2 shows the screen immediately after a bidder placed $2000 as a maximum bid.
In screenshot 2, you can see that $2000 was entered as the maximum bid. The auctioneer has set the automated bid increments to be $50 for this particular auction. You can calculate what the seller/auctioneers automated bid increment amount is by subtracting the current highest bid ($850 in screenshot 2) from the default value added to the black bid box ($900 in screenshot 2) by our system.
With the bid increments, as set by the auctioneer, being $50, entering $2000, in the bid box when the last bid was $800, as was done in screenshot 2, means that your bid will be automatically $850. Provided that no other bidders have a proxy bid higher than $850, you will become the highest bidder for the moment until other competitors adjust their bids higher.
**Please make sure that an auction does allow proxy bidding before placing a bid that is far away from the last / current bid. If proxy bidding is not enabled, your bid will actually become $2000 instead of $850 under a normal auction in the screenshot 2 example.
Screenshot 2Â Â
