MyComicShop July Auction

[mycomicshop]

If you're accepting feedback, please get rid of the 5 minute bid auto-extend deal. That's always been a terrible idea for online auctions.

 

Really? For what reasons? I'd love to hear your reasoning. If I'm not mistaken, this is a great way for MCS to maximize bidding potential.

 

For people who want to buy more than one book it stinks as you have to keep track of multiple auction endings rather than having them end consecutively in alpha/numerical order.

 

 

Its good for the buyers as they can't be sniped, and good for the sellers as they get top dollar. It does create more work for buyers, but I'm in favor of that rule.

 

 

Quick recap for context: in our auctions, any bid placed within 5 minutes of the scheduled auction end extends the auction end time to 5 minutes from when that bid was placed. We used this format in our April and May auctions. I'm a believer in testing different approaches and, where possible, making decisions guided by reliable data. So for June, as an experiment, we tried the format where all auctions ended at the originally stated end time, with no automatic extension for last-minute bids.

 

It wasn't a perfectly controlled experiment, since some other factors change month to month, but in looking at bid activity on an item by item basis for the June auction, I identified a number of items where it looked like the fixed end time prevented all bidders from getting their best bids in. Some were due to sniping. Others were due to bidders who didn't bid aggressively enough in the closing moments. For example, bidder A is currently the winner with 1 minute left, with a bid of $100 and a secret proxy max of $150. Bidder B places a bid of $110 with 40 seconds left. That bumps up the current bid, but not enough to beat A's proxy. Bidder B tries again with a bid of $120 with 20 seconds left. Still not a winner. Presumably, Bidder B might be willing to go higher but runs out of time before he can get another bid in.

 

In both of these patterns (sniping, and the incremental approach), the losing bidder has nobody to blame but himself. If he'd just use the proxy system to enter the max amount he's really willing to pay to begin with, he could only lose if somebody else was willing to pay more. The problem is, many bidders do not do that. They bid in small increments and leave themselves vulnerable to sniping. Since my goal is to (fairly and ethically) get the best prices possible for our sellers, I'm more interested in what bidders actually do than what they theoretically could do if they embraced the proxy system.

 

I also considered the possibility that a fixed end time might actually result in a higher price. For example, if two or more bidders all tried to snipe each other and threw in high last-minute bids (timed nearly simultaneously rather than in response to one another), the final bid might end up higher than if those bidders had had the time (as in a live auction) to respond to one another's bids incrementally. I'm sure that happens occasionally, but I didn't really see that happening much in our June auction--there were many more items where it looked like fixed end times depressed the hammer price than there were items where it looked like fixed end times boosted the hammer price.

 

 

 

 

[mycomicshop]

To Roy's point about it possibly being harder to keep track of auctions if the end time can extend:

 

I can see this possibly being a problem if the auctions aren't implemented well, but I think it's possible to give bidders an easy way to keep track of ending auctions, even those that are bumped ahead a few minutes. I think we already do a good job of this. In addition to the main auction listing, there's a page listing just the items you've already bid on (text only, no images, so it's nice and compact). As the auctions are ending (assuming you've already put in at least a tracking bid on the items you're interested in ), all you have to do is refresh this page to see at a glance the status of everything you've bid on.

 

You always have no less than 5 minutes to act, since even a bid placed with 1 second left will then extend the auction to 5 minutes from that point in time. If it takes you more than 5 minutes to check your "my bids" page and see that the item's end time has been extended due to a new bid received, there's no hope for you and you should just enter a max proxy bid. I haven't gotten any feedback from anyone who's used our auctions telling me that they've had any problems keeping track of what's ending due to items auto-extending.

 

Re-reading Roy's post, I can see that his comment might be directed more at buyer budgeting than simply keeping track of what's ended--since if an item is auto-extended you don't yet know if you've won or lost until the item truly ends. I admit that could be a concern for some bidders, depending on the timing of what they're interested in.

 

[dopy02]

I like the extended bidding even though I have yet to win a single book in a MCS auction. Due to the closing prices, not because of the extended bidding. ComicConnect uses a 3 minute overtime and that has worked well for me. What I don't like is Heritage on Sundays ending all auctions at the same time.

[superduperman-migration]

Its good for the buyers as they can't be sniped,

 

That's a con, not a pro.

 

 

In both of these patterns (sniping, and the incremental approach), the losing bidder has nobody to blame but himself. If he'd just use the proxy system to enter the max amount he's really willing to pay to begin with, he could only lose if somebody else was willing to pay more. The problem is, many bidders do not do that. They bid in small increments and leave themselves vulnerable to sniping. Since my goal is to (fairly and ethically) get the best prices possible for our sellers, I'm more interested in what bidders actually do than what they theoretically could do if they embraced the proxy system.

 

Right, either way, if the bidder doesn't enter his true max bid, he is an insufficiently_thoughtful_person. Auto-extend just allows this person to be an even bigger insufficiently_thoughtful_person for a longer amount of time. I guess I don't like auto-extend because I'm not an insufficiently_thoughtful_person?

[VintageComics]

To Roy's point about it possibly being harder to keep track of auctions if the end time can extend:

 

I can see this possibly being a problem if the auctions aren't implemented well, but I think it's possible to give bidders an easy way to keep track of ending auctions, even those that are bumped ahead a few minutes. I think we already do a good job of this. In addition to the main auction listing, there's a page listing just the items you've already bid on (text only, no images, so it's nice and compact). As the auctions are ending (assuming you've already put in at least a tracking bid on the items you're interested in ), all you have to do is refresh this page to see at a glance the status of everything you've bid on.

 

You always have no less than 5 minutes to act, since even a bid placed with 1 second left will then extend the auction to 5 minutes from that point in time. If it takes you more than 5 minutes to check your "my bids" page and see that the item's end time has been extended due to a new bid received, there's no hope for you and you should just enter a max proxy bid. I haven't gotten any feedback from anyone who's used our auctions telling me that they've had any problems keeping track of what's ending due to items auto-extending.

 

Re-reading Roy's post, I can see that his comment might be directed more at buyer budgeting than simply keeping track of what's ended--since if an item is auto-extended you don't yet know if you've won or lost until the item truly ends. I admit that could be a concern for some bidders, depending on the timing of what they're interested in.

 

My initially wording was a little too strong. It doesn't stink.

 

 

It does complicate things for people who are used to traditional timed auctions.

 

As you mentioned,

 

a) it does make it harder for budget minded bidders

b) and time oriented bidders

 

but if you've got the infrastructure to monitor bids relatively quickly built into your website then that takes care of line b) fairly well.

 

I guess line a) will just force people to prioritize their wants.

 

 

[fantastic_four]

Right, either way, if the bidder doesn't enter his true max bid, he is an insufficiently_thoughtful_person. Auto-extend just allows this person to be an even bigger insufficiently_thoughtful_person for a longer amount of time. I guess I don't like auto-extend because I'm not an insufficiently_thoughtful_person?

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

[fantastic_four]

What's the seller's fee for these auctions? Do the books go through mycomicshop.com so they can ensure the transaction takes place, or do they go from seller directly to buyer?

[TheGeneral]

What's the seller's fee for these auctions? Do the books go through mycomicshop.com so they can ensure the transaction takes place, or do they go from seller directly to buyer?

 

Here's a link to the consignment service terms/FAQ:

 

http://www.mycomicshop.com/webuycomics/consignmentterms

 

Fees:

 

Items sold through July 31, 2011

 

0% commission on all sales.

 

Items sold August 1 through December 31

 

0% commission on sales of $100 or more.

10% commission on sales less than $100, minimum of $5.00 per item sold.

 

 

I believe every consignment needs to be checked in at the MCS facility. I have been very happy with the consignment service they offer - the auctions have had solid results for me as well. In my experience they pay way faster than other auction/consignment services. Conan is always available to help you and answer any questions you may have.

[mycomicshop]

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

 

So far, I'd estimate that about 10% of our auctions get a bid within 5 minutes of the end time that causes an extension. Of those, almost all of them extend no more than about 6 or 7 minutes beyond the original end time, and I think the longest it's ever gone has been maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't witnessed any prolonged back and forth bidding that's lasted long enough that I'd consider it a problem.

 

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

[mycomicshop]

What's the seller's fee for these auctions? Do the books go through mycomicshop.com so they can ensure the transaction takes place, or do they go from seller directly to buyer?

 

Here's a link to the consignment service terms/FAQ:

 

http://www.mycomicshop.com/webuycomics/consignmentterms

 

Fees:

 

Items sold through July 31, 2011

 

0% commission on all sales.

 

Items sold August 1 through December 31

 

0% commission on sales of $100 or more.

10% commission on sales less than $100, minimum of $5.00 per item sold.

 

 

I believe every consignment needs to be checked in at the MCS facility. I have been very happy with the consignment service they offer - the auctions have had solid results for me as well. In my experience they pay way faster than other auction/consignment services. Conan is always available to help you and answer any questions you may have.

 

(thumbs u

 

All correct.

 

You ship your consignments to our main office. We grade any raw books, provide front and back scans, and file them in secure storage. Once your books are ready, you get an email notification and you use our web site to either set an asking price for fixed price sale or put them in the auction. You can modify your asking price at any time, or later switch a book into the auction if you've tried fixed price for a while and change your mind.

[shadroch]

One more question. It appears you can only consign stuff to the auction that is on your buying list, or am I misreading this?

[fantastic_four]

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

 

I mostly see it on rare items, the ones you only see every few years. Doug had a bunch of Fantastic Fours from 8 to 40 or so a year or so ago, all in grades you rarely or never see for sale, and somebody was dragging almost ALL of them out for 20, 30, up to 60 minutes after their normal end time. Quite annoying and comforting to know I don't have to be subject to these insufficiently_thoughtful_person's whims at Heritage and ComicLink.

[CKB]

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

 

So far, I'd estimate that about 10% of our auctions get a bid within 5 minutes of the end time that causes an extension. Of those, almost all of them extend no more than about 6 or 7 minutes beyond the original end time, and I think the longest it's ever gone has been maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't witnessed any prolonged back and forth bidding that's lasted long enough that I'd consider it a problem.

 

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

 

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

[Annihilus]

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

 

So far, I'd estimate that about 10% of our auctions get a bid within 5 minutes of the end time that causes an extension. Of those, almost all of them extend no more than about 6 or 7 minutes beyond the original end time, and I think the longest it's ever gone has been maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't witnessed any prolonged back and forth bidding that's lasted long enough that I'd consider it a problem.

 

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

 

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

 

That's not a bad idea. Start with the five minute time frame and reduce it by a certain amount (say thirty seconds or something) each time the auction is extended.

 

Not sure how often something like that would be needed, but probably not very often.

[mycomicshop]

One more question. It appears you can only consign stuff to the auction that is on your buying list, or am I misreading this?

 

No--a book being on our buying list has no impact on whether it's consignable.

 

Here's how it currently works:

 

- Any CGC or PGX 9.8 or higher is always eligible for consignment.

 

- CGC or PGX below 9.8 can be offered for consignment if the expected retail is $20 or more.

 

- Any raw book with an estimated retail value of $50 or more can be offered for consignment. After we receive the book and grade it ourselves, if we grade a book lower than the grade originally listed by the seller, we'll still accept it for consignment if the retail value is around $20 or more. The gap between $50 and $20 provides some buffer so that even when we downgrade a book from the seller's grading it may still be eligible for consignment.

 

If we grade a book lower such that the value is too low for us to accept it on consignment, we'll make you an offer to buy it outright based on our usual buying prices. You can either accept our offer or have the comic(s) returned to you for a base $5 return shipping charge (cost per shipment, not per item).

 

 

Exceptions to the above:

 

- If you have an item that's not in our database (maybe a sketch cover, original art, issue we've never had before), just check with me and we'll take it on consignment as long as the value is likely $20 or more.

 

- If you have a variant or higher grade CGC, and have reason to believe the value is higher than our pricing database thinks it is, check with me and I'll probably take it on consignment. We've gotten some nice variants in lately where this was the case.

 

- As long as you're ok with paying the minimum $5 per item commission on items that sell for under $100, I'm willing to relax the $50 constraint on what you can submit for consignment. This offer is for knowledgeable sellers like the ones on these boards. The $50 cutoff is helpful for people who don't know comics. It helps prevent them from sending in overgraded items on consignment that end up valued in the $1-10 range after we grade the books. But if you know what you're doing, so that you won't be sending in a bunch of $5 books, and you're ok with the minimum $5 commission on something that sells in the range of $10-$30, I can relax the submission constraint for you. This isn't described in our consignment info yet, but anybody that wants this please just contact me.

[mycomicshop]

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

 

So far, I'd estimate that about 10% of our auctions get a bid within 5 minutes of the end time that causes an extension. Of those, almost all of them extend no more than about 6 or 7 minutes beyond the original end time, and I think the longest it's ever gone has been maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't witnessed any prolonged back and forth bidding that's lasted long enough that I'd consider it a problem.

 

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

 

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

 

That's not a bad idea. Start with the five minute time frame and reduce it by a certain amount (say thirty seconds or something) each time the auction is extended.

 

Not sure how often something like that would be needed, but probably not very often.

 

I agree, I like that idea. Once it's 10 minutes or more past the originally scheduled end time, the extension period would drop to 2 or maybe 1 minute to encourage any remaining bidders to hurry it up.

[CKB]

 

As a buyer, yes, I completely agree with you, the people who creep up to their max are asses. I suspect encouraging this "I'm gonna bid you up slowly" behavior pisses off buyers and lowers prices overall, but I could be wrong, it'd take a fairly comprehensive study to determine that for sure. I'm sure sellers like to romanticize this as the spirit of competition increasing their profits. All it does to me is make me not want to use auctions which utilize this format. Heritage and ComicLink don't use this, Pedigree and ComicConnect do, and my reaction is to completely ignore ComicConnect auctions and sparingly bid in Pedigree for fear that one of the bid-creepers is going to drag some auction out for an hour after it was supposed to end. It's a real possibility on the harder-to-find books and I've seen bid-creeping in every Pedigree auction I've ever followed. It's not rampant, but it happens and it's annoying as hell when it does.

 

So far, I'd estimate that about 10% of our auctions get a bid within 5 minutes of the end time that causes an extension. Of those, almost all of them extend no more than about 6 or 7 minutes beyond the original end time, and I think the longest it's ever gone has been maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't witnessed any prolonged back and forth bidding that's lasted long enough that I'd consider it a problem.

 

If this started to become a problem, I would talk with the bidders involved and request that they try to get their best bids in near the original close, and not engage in incremental back and forth past the original close. I'd hope that's all that would be needed, but if not I can also tweak the programming as necessary to limit this kind of behavior. So far it hasn't been an issue for anybody.

 

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

 

That's not a bad idea. Start with the five minute time frame and reduce it by a certain amount (say thirty seconds or something) each time the auction is extended.

 

Not sure how often something like that would be needed, but probably not very often.

 

I agree, I like that idea. Once it's 10 minutes or more past the originally scheduled end time, the extension period would drop to 2 or maybe 1 minute to encourage any remaining bidders to hurry it up.

 

In the mythical website I designed in my head to compete with eBay, that is the way it works. The delay worked its way to 20 seconds over 15 minutes.

 

[gaz973]

My experience in bidding on MCS auctions was completely positive, the extended auction times doesn't bother me either way because I bid my maximum in advance.

 

I found Conan's customer service to be excellent and he was extremely helpful with both queries in advance and follow up.

[Gatsby77]

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

 

Exactly. The book should go to the person who is willing to pay the most, but given the chance to reconsider. Just like in a live auction (i.e., Heritage Live).

[fantastic_four]

This is the way a real auction is supposed to work. Please do not change it - you have the correct model already. At best tweak the extension time lower as the thing drags out.

 

Exactly. The book should go to the person who is willing to pay the most, but given the chance to reconsider. Just like in a live auction (i.e., Heritage Live).

 

"Real" auctions extend themselves by a few seconds after a bid, not 5 minutes.