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Whats up with the sealed biding

doghead

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All levels of government have been selling surplus items using sealed bidding. Read your local newspaper. The stuff is being offered to the public. What more do you want or expect?

What's wrong with sealed bid sales?
 
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porkysplace

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I can't see how surplus that was paid for and owned by US taxpayers should be allowed to

be sold by sealed bids.

Call your congressmen and complain about it.

Tom
The same could be said about the end of live auctions ,when they switched to internet auctions . Think about how things you sit at your computer and bid on , how many of those auctions could you have made in person ? With sealed bid you put your best bid out and you either win or lose , with the 15 minute rule on internet auctions the bidding wars start at 4:30 and alot of people spend way more than they wanted to.
 

m16ty

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The main thing with sealed bidding is the process. In a live auction if bidder "A" bids $100 on an item and bidder "B" wants to beat him, he knows all he has to bid is $105 (or whatever the next increment is). In a sealed bid bidder "A" bids $100 but that is not know by bidder "B". Bidder "B" really wants the item so he bids $800. Bidder "B" wins the item but he pays $700 over the next highest bidder whereas if it had been a live auction he would have only paid $105 (even if he had set his proxy bid at $800).

In other words, sealed bids can make someone pay much more than they needed to to win the item. There are no proxy bids in sealed bidding. You pay what you bid.
 

papabear

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All levels of government have been selling surplus items using sealed bidding. Read your local newspaper. The stuff is being offered to the public. What more do you want or expect?
What's wrong with sealed bid sales?


Plus...how do they know who submits the highest bid if they are sealed??:shock:

Guess the amazing Carnac helps em out:beer:
 

doghead

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Here's a couple basic facts to consider.

When you are the buyer, you hope to pay as little as possible for an item.

When you are the seller, you hope to get paid as much as possible for an item.

What are we supposed to tell our congressman? Either, We want the government to sell the items and recover as much money spent as possible or, We want the government to give away for free, all surplus? And,How we going to do that fairly?
 

3dAngus

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My theory is, sealed bids work best for retailers who just go in and bid a high amount on almost ALL of the MVs. Most individual pockets won't reach so deep. So we cannot see what the competition is, the price is, and cannot bid it up.

There are many advantages to bidding up a price. One is, if it is long distance, you cannot preview, you get a feel for what is the best few of the lot, based on early and final prices.

It gives you more confidence to bid up a price where the price is already high, often, but not always, previewed by someone who knows the "best of lot".

And if not fully knowledgeable of the item, and a first time buyer, the open bidding process gives you a good feel for what the item is worth in the end, as you see the final price. You can chalk it up to experience.

You get no experience, no knowledge, no confidence in the sealed bidding process due to the lack of information provided during and after the auction.

I'm all for "true transparancy" in the bidding and sales of surplus items.
 

m16ty

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Here's a couple basic facts to consider.

When you are the buyer, you hope to pay as little as possible for an item.

When you are the seller, you hope to get paid as much as possible for an item.

What are we supposed to tell our congressman? Either, We want the government to sell the items and recover as much money spent as possible or, We want the government to give away for free, all surplus? And,How we going to do that fairly?
True. I know I'm guilty of wanting to get a truck for cheap but at the same time complain about government waste. It is kind of hypocritical but we all do it.
 

porkysplace

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For years our local county road commision used sealed bid auctions for their surplus equipment . About 5 years ago they switched back to live auctions because things have been bringing 3 to 4 times as much as sealed bid auctions.

As for GL and the theory it favors big dealers , I don't see how that is when they are still auctioning one truck per lot . If they put lots of ten trucks up that would favor the dealers , but the dealers have overhead individuals don't have . And I think they would bid lower on lots of one truck as opposed to a lot of ten . They can get a better deal on transport for ten trucks than they can for one . So it comes down to can you really afford the truck your trying to buy or are you just to cheap to win one. As for trucks that are to far away to inspect you can always hire someone to inspect . And if you remember a couple years ago for quite awhile GL quit posting EUC items in the auction results . So GL not posting bid results is nothing new .
 

Blind Driver

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I passed by Camp shelby almost once a week and I could't believe hoe many trucks were next to the highway. I could easly see almost 200 trucks. Apparently they've been sitting sit since they were new as some have less than 10 miles on them according to GL.

Too bad every one is listed as "non=running"...or is that a good thing?
 
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