I knew that today there was this auction taking place where a computer company of some sort went bankrupt and so all of its remaining valuables were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The auction was actually taking place simultaneously in-person and online as people were able to bid against each other. I decided to view it online for the experience as I have never actually participated in an auction before.
From watching it, I can honestly say that so many of the purchases were purely emotional it seems. Some items I couldn’t believe sold for so much as you could easily find them elsewhere for cheaper. I took a video clip example of people bidding against each other which is kind of entertaining that you can see here:
I guess if you ever intend to go to an auction for something it is great to bring a person who knows a lot about the items. As an example, I someone purchase seven 1 gig USB memory sticks for $200 as shown here:
I know personally that these kinds of memory sticks can be bought for a regular retail price of around $20-$25 which would be $140-$175. Not only that, but for the auction it was mention that you would have to pay a 15% buyer’s premium on top of the final bid price which makes it even more expensive. I was actually watching this auction with another person as well and he joked that there must have been internal people bidding on items to drive the prices up so that people get caught up in the moment in bidding for things. In many ways I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true too.
There were some crazy purchases though such as a large photocopier that was bought for under $70. The interesting thing I noticed for many items though, which can help you to determine if it is a good deal, is that a lot of people placed pre-bids and for the most part it looked like those guys knew the max to pay for an item to be considered as a good deal from its regular market value. I still say you should participate in these things with a person knowledgeable about the category though. If you really want a deal though, I still think networking with the right people can get you far better deals in the long run.