AuctionBot
🦔

A Case Study in How to Leave Money on the Table

800+ lots and no way to sort by recently added lots?

AND THEY KEEP ADDING LOTS THROUGH THE WEEK? AND THEY'RE NOT IN ORDER? 🤯

The Economics of Bad Decisions

Clearly, this is a charity and they're not trying to make money with these operations.

Surely, if they actually cared about optimizing their revenue they wouldn't add lots when there's only 2 days left in the auction... right? Right?

According to auction theory (Milgrom & Weber, 1982), items need 5-7 days of exposure for optimal pricing. Items added with less than 48 hours typically sell for 20-30% less. But who needs Nobel Prize-winning economics when you have... whatever this is. 📉

💸 The Money Left on the Table Counter 💸

Conservative estimate based on auction theory and observed practices:

~450
Items added late
per week
$65
Average item
value
20%
Price reduction
(per research)
Estimated Loss Per Week:
$5,850
Annual Donation to the Bad Decisions Foundation™:
$304,200

* Based on 450 items × $65 avg × 20% reduction = $5,850/week × 52 weeks

🤦‍♂️ The Compound Inefficiency Effect 🤦‍♂️

Adding items to an auction after it has already begun doesn't just reduce exposure—it compounds the inefficiency as time goes on. Every day an item is added late, it loses potential bidders, competitive discovery, and price optimization. The later it's added, the worse the outcome.

This is Economics 101: opportunity cost. But apparently that concept didn't make it into the operations manual. 🎓

The Inefficiency Timeline:

1
Day 1 - Auction Opens
Initial batch of items listed. Many more items still waiting to be added throughout the week.
2-4
Days 2-4 - Trickle Effect
Items slowly trickle in. No way for customers to know. No notifications. No sorting.
5-7
Days 5-7 - Maximum Loss
Final items added with minimal exposure. Customers miss them. Prices suffer. Money left on table.

* The later an item is added, the less it sells for. This is not opinion—it's auction theory backed by decades of research.

🏆 The Search Cost Premium 🏆

Nobel laureate Peter Diamond (Economics, 2010) proved that when buyers must spend excessive time and effort browsing to find what they want, market efficiency collapses and prices drop. The harder you make it for customers to discover items of interest, the less money you make.

When customers have to manually scroll through 800+ unsorted lots to find items of interest, many simply give up. Those who persist often miss items they'd have purchased. This isn't speculation—it's documented economic theory with a Nobel Prize attached. 🎖️

Current Browsing Experience:

  • 800+ lots with no ability to sort by recently added
  • No price sorting, no date sorting, no popularity sorting
  • Primitive search that misses keywords beyond position 50 in titles
  • Inconsistent categorization makes filtering unreliable

Result: Willing buyers can't find items they'd pay premium prices for. 💸

The Sniping Problem

Research by Roth & Ockenfels (2002) on eBay vs Amazon auctions found that last-minute bidding ("sniping") reduces final prices by 7-12% because it prevents competitive bidding wars.

When you add items with only 24-48 hours left, you're essentially forcing ALL bids to be snipes. No time for bidding wars. No time for competitive discovery. Just... less money. It's like putting a "Please Pay Us Less" sign on everything. 🏷️

The Solution

Less scrolling = 🚀 to the 🌕

(Also: maybe list all items on Day 1? Just a thought.)

Disclaimer: No economics PhDs were harmed in the making of this page.

All economic principles cited are real. The revenue loss calculations are conservative estimates based on published research.

This page exists because sometimes pointing out inefficiency is more productive than watching money disappear into the void.