JAWS! Jewelry Auction Web Slam! (Know as Dutch Auction)
Multiple Item (JAWS!) auctions contain two or more identical
items offered by the seller. In addition, multiple item auctions have the
following characteristics and are governed by the following rules:
JAWS!
Auctions do NOT accepted proxy (limit) bids. The amount entered will be
the amount you pay (per unit) if you win.
The bidder
must select the quantity (number of units) desired when submitting a bid.
Only whole unit entries are accepted.
All bids
placed represent a per unit offer. Therefore, if you bid on 2 items at $10
per unit, the total amount required to purchase 2 items is $20.
The Current
Bid displayed on the bid form represents the "lowest winning" bid on the
lot.
To place a
bid, you must meet or exceed the Minimum Bid. The Minimum bid is equal to
the starting bid until all available items are bid on. Once all items are
bid on, a minimum raise will be required. At this point, the Minimum Bid
equals the Current Bid plus the Minimum Raise.
For example, there is a 10 item listing
and Bidder A holds the High Bid at $200 for 5 items (note the Bidder List
only shows $170 for A). Bidder B holds the lowest winning bid for another 5
items at $170. If the Minimum Raise is $20, then the Minimum Bid is now
$190. Bidder C must now bid at least $190 to participate.
Winning
bidder(s) are determining by the following order of precedence;High Bid Price, Largest Quantity, And Earliest Time
Entered. Use the Bidder List link to view details.
A bidderis not allowedto
lower their total bid value (bid price per item times the quantity of
items bid on) at any time.
A biddercannotlower
their bid price at any time.
Winning
bid(s) are based on theactual
bid amount placed.
Example:
A listing with 10 available items and 2 bidders:
Bidder A bid on 8 items at $4 each.
Bidder B bid on 5 items at $5 each.
Since the actual bid placed is used,
the results of this auction are:
Bidder A wins 5 items at $4 each.
Bidder B wins 5 items at $5 each.
Winning
bidders with a "winning" quantity that is less than their "bid on"
quantity must purchase partial quantities. Therefore, if you win less than
the entire quantity of items you bid on, and then you are required to buy
all of those you won.
Detailed
bid information is displayed when you click on the "Bidders list" link.
Bids thatare
notcurrently "winning bids" show associated bid prices.
However, bids thatare"winning bids" show only the "lowest winning"
(Current) bid. Therefore, all winning bids show the same per unit price.
EXPLAINING JAWS! IN STORY
If one of our JAWS! Auction listed 10 same available jewelry items with opening bid at $5 and 10 different bidders bid $6 each. This JAWS! will show each is in a potentially winning position and their winning bid is $5 (not $6 because no-one is competing against anyone else yet). If the auction closed immediately, they'd all be winners.
Remember one important thing, JAWS! dutch auction is that you can't enter a maximum bid: what you bid *is* your bid, though all auction winners pay the lowest winning bid across all items, so in effect you can still end up paying less than your bid, depending on how the auction ends.
Back to the story. A jewelry collector learns of the auction, we'll call him bidder #11, and bids $20 for 5 jewelry. Now is where things get complicated: five of the jewelry are taken by this new bidder, but what happens to the other five jewelry?
The answer is that the older bids trump the newer bids, so bidders #1-5 would be in the lead for the other five disks and bidders #6-10 would need to up their bid to stay in the running.
Confusing? Yeah. Worse, the new bidder might not pay $20 each for the five jewelry, depending in the final winning bids. They might only end up paying $5 each, an amount lower than the earlier bidders!
Now bidder #6 comes back and bids $100 on one of these jewelry items. He really, really wants it. The lowest winning bid would still be $5, but bidder #6 now supplants bidder #5 (remember, it's newest to oldest).
If the auction now closes without any changes -- and this is when it really gets weird -- everyone pays the cost of the lowest successful bid. This means that bidder #11 who offered $20 per disk and bidder #6 who offered $100 pay the same amount as bidder #1-4, namely $5 each.
This is an instance of when you can lose an auction and see it close at less than your maximum bid! Kind of the luck of the draw.
Honestly, multiple item listings make my head swim and I had to fact check this blog entry with a couple of eBay gurus to make sure I had this all correct myself!
Fortunately, you can pretty much ignore this confusion and just bid the max you'd pay on a multi-item auction, including indicating how many you'd actually buy. And that's all there is to it. The rest you can just ignore as magic.
**Thank you Dave! This story was borrowed & modified from Mr. Dave Taylor (https://www.askdavetaylor.com)
Bidding Increments
Please note that the first bid ( aka opening or starting bid) on an item does NOT require a raise and therefore has a bid increment of $0.
This site is setup for whole dollar bidding only (no cents allowed,e.g $15).