This is stand-in copy. It shipped with the software and nobody has replaced it yet. The structure is right and the tone is ours, but every number, address, hour and promise below was invented to fill the space. Do not let this page take a real bid. Rewrite it in Settings › Static pages, and delete this paragraph when you do.
Register once
Create an account, confirm your email address and put a card on file. The card is not charged to register and we never see the number — it goes straight to our payment provider and comes back as a token. What we hold is the token.
Some sales also need you to register for that specific auction, and a few need approval before you can bid. The auction page tells you which, before you get attached to a lot.
Bid your maximum, once
Enter the most you are willing to pay. The system bids on your behalf, one increment at a time, only as high as it has to, and stops at your number. You do not have to sit there.
If somebody else has already left a higher maximum, you will be outbid immediately — that is the system telling you the truth rather than letting you find out at midnight. If two people leave the same maximum, the one who left it first wins. There is no other tiebreak.
Lots close one at a time
A sale does not end all at once. Lots close in order, typically twenty seconds apart, so lot 1 finishes while lot 400 is still running. Plan for that: a sale of 500 lots takes a couple of hours to close from end to end.
A late bid extends the clock
Bid inside the last few minutes of a lot and the closing time moves back. It keeps moving back until nobody bids for the length of that window. Nobody wins a lot by having a faster connection than you.
Reserves
Some lots carry a reserve — a price below which the seller is not obliged to sell. We will tell you whether the reserve has been met. We will not tell you what it is.
What you actually pay
Your bid is not the total. Every sale adds a buyer's premium and sales tax, and the rates are stated on the auction page and in the terms you accept when you register for it. As a worked example, on a $100 winning bid:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Winning bid | $100.00 |
| Buyer's premium (15%) | $15.00 |
| Sales tax (6%) | $6.90 |
| Total | $121.90 |
[CONFIRM THESE RATES.] They are the platform defaults, not a promise. The rate that applies to you is the one on the auction page for the sale you are bidding in.
If you win
You get an email, and an invoice appears in your account. Pay it, then collect or arrange shipping inside the removal window — see the shipping and collection page. Winning is a contract, not a reservation.