Your Stamp Auction Network (San) Agent Bidding Feedback Wanted

If you utilize SAN agent bidding I would be greatly appreciative if you could share your thoughts about it.

I used it twice, and it seemed to work as advertised. The 1st time I was underbidder on 2 items, and the 2nd time I won 1 and lost 1, but I don't know if I would have won if I'd just submitted my bid. I used the agent because I wasn't going to be able to watch the live auction. If I could use it for auctions that didn't have live bidding I'd use it a lot more.

I have used it 3 times , once a Siegel's Auction, and Sparks twice. It worked all three times, and I paid way below my max every time. Other times when I was bidding directly with SAN, it seemed, that I would get to my limit. Some auction houses, and I will not name them publicly, before I started using an agent, that my max was always what I paid, and that was even at an auction that was called live. I am not talking about a mail sale either.

Thanks for the feedback Ken and fantail. Much appreciated. I am going to use it soon. I cannot sit through every live auction.

I've used it many times, but I did run into an issue with SANS in a Kelleher sale.

I placed a bid, and it did not show up. There is apparently a lag between some auction houses and SANS which was acknowledged. Fortunately, I was also on Kelleher listening to the sale and caught it.

This was a while back, so the issue may have been resolved.

Used it today at Spinks. Worked like a charm!

I've used it; it worked as advertised. 1% on your winning lots (no fee if you win under $1000) seems pretty decent.

Rogdcam

I have not used this yet but feel like it is the smartest way to proceed with bidding on SANs. I watch the webinar last night to understand the feature better and did learn you must pay SANs to have access to this part of their site which is not an issue for me but does hinder the adoption of this new third way to bid on their platform. I understand that Agents can only work on venues that have live auctions. Is this the reason why there are only two active agent events on the docket? For example, Paradise Valley Stamp Company has 1500 items ending today but there is no Agent bidding. In the video they showed a Paradise Valley Stamp Company auction that had Agent bidding (June 2018 timeframe) so why not for today's auction. I take it this feature is labor intensive so is SANs only focused on the Name Brand auction houses now and has stopped supporting smaller ones? Maybe the June 2018 auction had live bidding and the one today does not? Your insight is appreciated.

I prefer Live Bidding if I'm able to stay at my PC, the Agent is good if I can't. They only support the Live Auctions now but are testing using Agent with the auctions that are not live. This is where I would always use it rather than put my bids in ahead of time with the auction house. Paradise ran a Live Auction but this was the only time I'd seen them do that. Maybe it was an experiment for them.

Redtail - I cannot explain the Paradise example. The only way that agent bidding makes sense is for live auctions. If you are submitting book bids through SAN there is no way to have a real time bidding agent. One thing I noticed at the Spink auction that drove me nuts is that people were treating it like ebay in that they kept entering bids on SAN and raising each other prior to the live part. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Ken - I am not comprehending agent book bidding.

Rogdcam

So for Paradise, assuming they are not closing auctions live today, book bid is the only method available on SANs, right?

A book bid should only be entered within the last few minutes of an auction closing, say at 12.50 PM if the auction closes at 1 PM, does that sound like the right approach to you?

My best guess as to what they mean by this is that they accumulate the agent book bids, but don't publish them. When the auction closes, they then apply all of the agent book bids in the order received, etc.

I'm just guessing, I never saw it explained clearly.

Redtail - It would be prudent to wait until the last possible minute. I watched a lot at Spink yesterday on SAN jump from 375 to 2100 dollars within hours because at least two idiots were bidding each other up prior to it being hammered down live. The estimate on it was 500 to 750 dollars. It was utter stupidity.