The Five Minute Timer
The "five minute timer" is designed to prevent sniping at the last minute, and also give bidders a final chance to compete with other active bidders.
Simple. Five minutes before the normal auction closing time which is at Sunday, June 9, 2024 at 10:00pm ET; 9:00pm CT; 8:00pm MT; 7:00pm PT, a five minute timer per item is started. If an item receives a bid during that period, the five minute timer for that item is restarted. Thus, an item is not closed until it has received no bids for five minutes. Normal out bid messages, etc. will be sent out in this phase as well.
Why can't I wait until there is only a few seconds left before the five minutes is up and the item closes, and then submit my bid and sneak it in "under the wire"? Simple. Your bid will reset the five minute timer and thus the item will stay open for an additional five minutes!
Bid as you normally would. Because there is no sniping, you can save yourself and other bidders time by raising your bid promptly when you notice you have been outbid. You still can place a maximum bid too of course, and have the chips fall as they may.
Yes, you will get normal email notifications if you are outbid, as well as an email if you are the successful bidder. i.e. when there has been no bidding activity for five minutes since the previous bid. At that point, the item will be closed and no one can bid on it.
This is the time the item will close, assuming no bids are received. The current time may be found at the top of the page under "Status as of". Note that the time is eastern time, however for this use for a five minute timer, you really only need to concern yourself with the minutes and seconds.
We hope so! Since every bid on an item resets the five minute timer, there will be at least five minutes before any piece is closed. If there are other active bidders, the time until there are no bids for five minutes will be increased of course. However since there is no advantage to waiting until you place your bid (see above) it is expected that the process be fairly quick, and we estimate even with pieces seeing aggressive bidding will still close in 20-30 minutes.
In that case, simply submit your highest bid at any point during the auction. Your winning bid will always only be one increment above the next highest bidder. Example: If you bid $300 on an item and the next highest bidder only bids $170, you will win the item for $180.
Please contact us.