When considering whether an auction is a good fit for your liquidation needs, it’s important to consider the topic of minimums. In a traditional auction, there is no minimum starting bid. Bidding starts at just $1. If you are thinking, “Wow, that sounds like the worst idea ever! I’m just giving stuff away!” then you probably haven’t looked at any closed auctions, which you can do here. Just scroll down to the closed auction section and you can see the final hammer price for our recently ended events.
Auctions do one things really well, which is to sell a large number of items in a short amount of time. That means we aren’t listing items individually on eBay or Facebook marketplace, haggling over every single thing and waiting for the right buyer to come along. We rely on market driven results and that’s ultimately determined by the bidders. Our job is to present the items you have for sale in a well run, professional, nice looking auction so bidders want to line up to get what you’re selling. We track down collectors and niche buyers so they know what you have on offer, and we do our research to ensure we have accurate, SEO friendly titles that get clicks and buyers.
When you start throwing minimum starting bids on a bunch of things, it pretty much stops the auction machine in its tracks. It’s not the format bidders expect, and often it means either zero bids or just one bid to somone who really wants the items and is willing to pay the listed price. Where you lose out is on the competitive bidding side. There will be fewer bidders trying to get the item, and less interest kills demand. Too many minimums means most people won’t even bid in the first place. Imagine a balloon slowly losing air and eventually fluttering to the ground in a wrinkled heap or latex. That is your auction with too many minimums,
As such, we allow up to three minimums of the seller’s choosing with the big caveat of we don’t recommend doing this. Higher end items sell for more, lower end items sell for less. You’re not giving anything away, unless of course it’s faux florals or mugs, in which case we truly are happy to have someone bid $1 to take it away. We have 4+ years of auction data to draw on, so if you’re curious about what prices we’ve gotten for similar items, just ask!
Finally, we always encourage our clients to consider the final sale results. There will be items that sell for more than you expected and items that will sell for less. At the end of the day, you will have far, far less to donate or trash, a check in hand and the knowledge that those unwanted items are off to live happy lives in their new homes.
If you need greater price control, a consignment store or a company that offers in-person estate sales may be your best bet, though you’ll want to ensure they are willing to agree to your pricing requests. If they are not in line with market values, you may have a hard time finding someone willing to take on your sale.