English Auction
An English auction, also known as an ascending price auction, is one of the most common auction types. It starts with a low initial price, and participants place increasingly higher bids. The auction continues until no new bids are submitted within a defined time frame. The participant who places the highest bid wins the item at the price they offered.
English auctions are well-suited for selling unique or high-value items like art, real estate, or collectibles. They encourage competitive bidding and often result in higher final prices.
Following are the attributes of this auctioning mechanism:
Reserve Price : The minimum acceptable price established by the seller prior to the auction. It can be disclosed or undisclosed by the seller to the potential buyers. If set to 0, this turns the auction into a no-reserve or absolute auction, in which the item will be sold regardless of the value of the final bid.
Opening Price : The initial price at which the auction opens.
Minimum Increment : The minimum amount by which a new bid must exceed the previous bid.
Start date and time : The auction start date and time (some time in future) before which it cannot be started.
Scheduled End date and time : Scheduled auction end date and time. This can extend if there is a non-zero soft close time. Extension of the scheduled end time will be capped by the hard close time.
Soft close duration : A soft close duration is a practice designed to prevent auction sniping and ensure fair bidding by extending the auction's end time when new bids are placed near the original closing time. The purpose of a soft close duration is to prevent last-second sniping, where a bidder waits until the very last moment to place a bid, making it difficult for other participants to respond with higher bids. By extending the auction when new bids are submitted near the end, all participants have a fair chance to react and place competitive bids.
Hard close date and time : The date and time beyond which the auction will not extend.
Buyout price : A pre-decided price at which a bidder can choose to buy the item anytime during the auction and end it (an example is eBay's "Buy It Now" feature). If no participants choose the ‘buyout’ option, then the highest bidder wins the item.
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