Online VS Offline Auctions (part 2)

I know this was briefly discussed in another article I made talking about the pros and cons of bidding for items online during auctions. However I never talked about the pros and cons of online VS offline auctions. It may seem to many of you as the subject, in which case you are free to move on but for all of you that are going to stay, hang out ’till the end of this article. It’s going to be quite insightful and good for you to know.

Let’s first of all set an exact and same price ticket on both the online and offline version of auctions so we can make it fair. It was mentioned for example that in online auctions, you get access to cheaper product. So the comparison can be fair and equal, what I will do is bring those two on the same level playing field.

I guess one of the main advantage of online auctions, is the fact that you can sit at the comfort of your own house and bid for a certain product. You don’t need to stand in line to get into the auction center, you don’t need to shout your lungs out to get the price you want, and you certainly don’t need all the noise that takes place at these events. You could be drinking tea in front of your laptop computer and enjoy the bidding process, monitoring the pricing of that specific product you are interested in. So you basically don’t even need to get out of bed. Online auctions are what I call “for lazy people.” 

What is the main disadvantage? Online theft…

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Auctions – How Do Auctioneers Make Money

I know this part of the concept is probably something that may be in your mind as a big question mark. Perhaps you are just curious about the way these professionals (and the whole auction center) benefits from the sales and all. Others may want to follow such a career, and I can tell you that in order to speak that well and that fast, you better start soon.

Obviously the auctioneers, the announcers get paid a salary. The type of items that are sold don’t really determine what they make as they get paid by the venue. Having said that though, obviously auctions that involved more expensive items, will have more expensive professionals working there than elsewhere (common sense right?) So the point I’m trying to make is that they don’t get any commissions or anything like that.  If that were the case, there would be no one to announce the smaller items that are for sale.

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Auction Of Construction Equipment (Heavy Machinery)

In the latest posts, we have talked about all sorts of auctions ranging from arts, the type of auctions done to dine with celebrities and many other topics. What we haven’t focused on a lot (and there is a reason for that) is the auctioning of heavy duty equipment: your excavators, bulldozers, cranes etc. The reason we haven’t done so is basically because more people would be interested in the arts that are being auctioned or some piece of technology used in our every day lives, than equipment used by these professionals only.

However, because I do want to cover everyone and all topics, I will dedicate this post to the construction companies and workers that need a voice for the auctions in this field. There has been a lot of discussion about the quality of the equipment being sold. You will see a lot of this on heavy equipment forums where people will find some kind of excavator made in the 60’s and he is wondering if that would be a good idea for a purchase. As with anything, construction equipment tends to wear out so people need to make sure they won’t be buying just tons of steel and that they’ll be buying something that will actually help them in their job. It is funny because in one of these forums, there was a demolition expert that was so opinionated on people not buying from auctions. He has his own little company and basically is the kind of person that believes in the idea of getting the best type of equipment in the market. In fact if you click here you will find the type of construction tools he personally uses. So his mindset was: if the product is good why is the contractor offering it for grabs, selling it?

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Art Auctions Online?

Everyone has probably heard of these large auction galleries for art that take place once in a while. A few of the most famous ones (and where the higher ticket items are sold) are located in large cities such as New York City or Paris. There, a few of the most successful people in the world gather in order to bid for rare art pieces of specific artistic creations that they believe will gain value in the upcoming years (as an investment.)

Nowadays though, and as the Internet keeps on spreading like fire, more and more of these auctions are taking place online. Even if you look at E-bay, that is a very simple platform to use for auctions. But of course there are a lot more platforms that specialize purely on the arts. The good thing with these sites, is that they offer more every day people the opportunity to bid for these items. Not everyone can take his car or plane and go down to NYC for the event. So at the comfort of your own home, you are able to basically bid on items that you otherwise would only fantasy about. Another good thing about these online platforms for art bids, is that they can offer items that are of lower value and significance. So in other words, even if you were to get your tail in New York you still probably wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for any of those paintings.

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Bidding On Warren Buffet Lunch

So for everyone that doesn’t know who Warren Buffett is, I would suggest you open a book once in a while. The mega investor that has made tens of billions of his own fortune (self made man) and who keeps on working hard every single day once a year offers a very special lunch that people need to bid for in order to talk with him. Usually the final amount lays somewhere in the range of $2-3 million. People have the opportunity to not only meet Warren but to also ask him any questions (excluding what his next investments are going to be) or advice etc. In fact, last year the amount the successful bidder had to pay was $3,456,789 and he was able to basically get close to the oracle of Omaha. 

Now I know many people will say: so much money for one lunch? Many others will say Warren is selling his plate of food for an incredibly high amount. Please note that this that he does is all for charity work. So in other words, he won’t be collecting a single dime from this and will in fact give it all away. It’s a win win win situation: the bidder is able to meet one of the most successful people of all time, Warren is able to give some very helpful advice and thus contribute to society, and the charities and causes he cares about are going to be able to support themselves.

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Auctioning Foreclosed Homes

In the latest articles written, we discussed quite a few things actually regarding auctions taking place online and auctions that take place offline. There are many people that would rather only attend an offline event, than sit over a computer screen and wish that they get their dream item at a very good price.

Today we are going to talk about bids on foreclosed homes and auctioning such properties. Before I get into it, I just wanted to make some discussion on the moral part of it. We obviously know that those homes are up for grabs, because someone failed to pay their mortgage and thus the bank took it. So I am hoping to write things that aren’t opinionated but are rather offering food for thought.

What do you think? Is it okay to buy a foreclosed home when you know someone was kicked out of it?

Here’s my take on this: It is the home of someone who lost it, definitely! It is a bad thing for people to be in such financial distress to not be able to have a home of their own. According to the rules of the game though, the home doesn’t belong to that person or family until it’s paid off. So officially, the bank is really the owner of the home, and is just letting you live in there until the loan amount has been paid off or been forgiven. So many times we say: the banks kicked them out of their homes. No they didn’t: the banks kicked them out of the bank’s property for lack of sufficient funds.

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Offline VS Online Auctions

This article is purely going to be one based on preference. I wont bring to you information that will try and convince you on which type of auction is better. Basically, I will try and be honest/fair (and not biased) to provide you with the pros and cons of offline and online auctions.

We can all agree that offline auctions are a lot more enjoyable: it’s a whole show and those skilled people that speak so fast really make it worth watching. Especially if you are not in the race and you are just a viewer, it can get quite entertaining watching the contestants try and fight for that valuable item they so much want. You look at them sweat and raise up the stakes for no good reason (just so that the other guy is stuck with the bill) and it’s all good, until you are the one actually in the pit. Offline auctions (as in all auctions) have many people that are existent in the competition simply to raise the prices. So there may be some valuable pieces of jewelry that you may want so badly, but there will be people in the room just to make you bid much higher than you actually would. If you let it get out of control, you may end up paying 10X the amount you should have, so you need to be careful. 

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Safety Of Online Auctions

Okay, so before we go any further with the auction story, I just want to make sure we have said certain things and understood certain concepts when it comes to auctions done on the Internet. Safety is a real problem in 2017 and even if you are looking at the world around you, there are security breaches every day: not just for common people like you and me, but also large corporate entities. Lots of money has been lost both in terms of cash and in terms of value, from online platforms that don’t have high level of security.

So the common way is: a hacker cracks into the back-end of the platforms and basically gets access to the funds available within the platform. So all the users that have been saving their money on there, will lose their funds. Many times you don’t need to add funds until you are actually ready to make a purchase (then you proceed to using a credit card or a PayPal.) Even so, there have been lots of hacking issues lately and it’s only going to get worse.

Does this mean you don’t work on those platforms and avoid online auctions? Of course not! What I am suggesting however, is that you pay attention which sites you will be joining and most importantly: will be spending money on. Don’t go to any lower quality places that can not guarantee you safe and secure transactions. Just for your information, the type of sites we will be redirecting you to, will be the top notch ones in the market. So whatever referral is offered, don’t worry about security issues – we always double check these.

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Hey there!

So we finally made it and are up and running with our online auction site. A lot of information is going to go out on different available options on the web (in the upcoming days.) As you probably are aware of, e-bay does many of these and people will go in to bid on specific products. Person with the highest bid is awarded that product.

Although this site isn’t an auction center, we will be redirecting you to some very interesting offers people are putting out there. So this is going to be more of an information center if you will. Some of these places we will redirect you to, are areas we have created affiliate business relationships. So in other words, in some of these, we get paid commissions for the referral. However, we will also post about so many other places whenever we see something worth pursuing. We will try and not spam you with products you don’t like or are of low quality.

Yeah, just wanted to get this first change to introduce my self and get to meet as many of you as possible. Hopefully you will find a lot of valuable bargains both on the places we redirect you to, and on this site. I want to make sure every time you visit Oldsmobile Online Auctions, you are getting a lot of value.

That’s it for now, talk to you later.