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Auctions
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A Reserve auction is an auction where the item for sale may not be sold if the final bid is not high enough to meet what the seller expects. The seller "reserves" the right to accept or reject the highest bid, depending on what he perceives the value of the item to be. In these cases a set "reserve price" known to the auctioneer, but not necessarily to the bidders, may have been set in advance below which the item may not be sold.
A reserve auction is safer for the seller than a no-reserve auction as they are not required to accept a low bid. However this method of auctioning could potentially result in a lower final price if there is less interest is generated in the sale. Reserve auctions are basically allow the seller to test the market without having to commit to the sale, if he or she so chooses. |
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Auctions
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A Dutch auction, which is also known as an open descending price auction, is an auction where a high price is set and lowers until bidders start to participate in the auction. In the traditional Dutch auction the auctioneer begins with a high asking price which is lowered until some participant is willing to accept the auctioneer's price. The winning participant pays the last announced price.
The Dutch auction is named for its best known example, the Dutch tulip auctions.
The term "Dutch auction" is sometimes used to describe online auctions where several identical goods are sold simultaneously to an equal number of high bidders. In addition to cut flower sales in the Netherlands, Dutch auctions have also been used for perishable commodities such as fish and tobacco. However, the Dutch auction is not widely used in common practice. |
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Online Auctions
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Auction sniping is the process of watching a timed Internet online auction (such as eBay), and placing a winning bid at the last possible moment (often just seconds before the end of the auction), giving the other bidders no time to outbid the "sniper". Some bidders do this manually, and others use software designed for the purpose. A bid sniper is a person or software agent who performs auction sniping.
There are also online sniping services, where the software agent is run from a website rather than the sniper's own computer. This decreases the failure rate of the snipe, because the website is expected to have more reliable servers that might be quicker to react. |
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