Using the SoldOnline virtual auction platform, these ingredients are baked in to help agents maximise buyer competition.
2 – 4 Day Auction Lengths
Firstly, we always recommend auctions run between 2 and 4 days. This allows a conservative starting bid to be published and gives you the agent time to consult every person who has enquired about the property. This often leads to further registered bidders.
Set An Attractive Starting Bid
Regardless of the reserve price, our system has been designed to create transparency, urgency and action. Because the starting bid is publicly displayed once the auction is in session, a well placed starting bid will maximise the number of registered bidders.
Reserve Status Declared After Every Bid
Once that starting bid has been accepted by one of those bidders, competition is ensured. The reason –
…every time a bid is placed, our platform declares whether that bid has reached the reserve.
‘Top Cat’ Exclusive Negotiation
Every bidder on SoldOnline wants to be ‘Top Cat’ should the reserve not get reached and the clock counts out.
Why? They understand that the highest bidder and only the highest bidder gets the reserve revealed and receives exclusive negotiating rights for 60 minutes.
Bidders must bid to their limits to have any chance of winning the auction. In this event, the vendor knows that they are dealing with the party with the most money so it is in their best interest to make a deal. Perfect ingredients for an agent to negotiate an outcome.
Managing Unrealistic Reserves with Decision Pending Price
FINAL CALL Gives Bidders Time = More Bids
Importantly, unlike traditional auctions, our virtual platform gives bidders time to think and time to discuss. In the FINAL CALL stage of our auctions, every bid that is made in the last 3 minutes resets the countdown clock back to a full 3 minutes.
At that point, the minimum increment could be as low as $500 – so bidders will often exceed their limits which will maximise the owners result.
