Let the Buyer Beware and Other Homilies
Now that I have two high-tech dot-gone auctions under my belt, here are the tips I took away from my excursions:
- Look at every item and then look again. Inspection can’t be underestimated when considering items at an auction. “Buyers need to really inspect everything, [since] we make no warranties,” according to auctioneer Scott Van Horn of the Van Horn Rinella Auction Group of Brea, Calif. He added that each lot is sold “as is, where is.”For example, one lot at the Phoenix POP auction looked like a dream come true for a content creator. Standing on a table were the complete design and publishing packages from Adobe and Macromedia; Allaire’s Cold Fusion; the Oracle 8 database package; a Microsoft Developer Network binder; and three copies of Quark XPress 4.0, one shrink wrapped. Wow, one might think, here’s a bargain.But after shaking out the boxes and binders, I discovered that none contained their discs! I found a few of the discs in a different lot, but most were missing. So unless a buyer was interested in software packaging and manuals, the only thing of real value on the table was the shrink-wrapped copy of XPress. And it wasn’t even the most recent version.
- Price is everything. “I don’t know why people buy anything new today,” Van Horn said. “The auction may not have the top of the line and everything isn’t always pretty, but for the savings, why not?”But to really bring home a bargain, buyers must keep in mind two calculations during the heat of an auction: the total purchase price of an item, and the difference between the cost of an auction item and its retail price (or its replacement with a newer version).First, as mentioned before, there’s an overhead to every purchase at an auction, which can add up. Before the auctions, I calculated a table of likely prices for items and their corresponding overhead amounts. This made it easy to quickly see the total price during bidding.
Second, with all due respect to the sentiments of the auctioneer, there is a significant value to be found in the performance of newer technology and the warranties that accompany a retail purchase. The price of a used item bought at auction must be low enough — very low, in my opinion — to balance its lack of warranty and its unknown condition. This is especially true of products that degrade with use, such as CRT displays, as well as products that see plenty of wear and tear, such as notebook computers.
I brought several PC and Mac mail-order catalogs I could use to check prices. In the future, I will also take an office supply catalog now that I see the wide range of useful items that can be snatched up, including photocopiers and reams of paper. - Know exactly what you’re buying. Please see my previous column about the potential perils of auction lots with multiple items.
- Pay attention. We’re all familiar with the movie cliché about auctions where people in the audience wave their hand or scratch here and there, and wind up bidding on some expensive object. Joke or not, this almost happened. An auctioneer asked a bidder: “Are you bidding or just saying ‘hello’?” It was the latter.
- Competition is the devil. Set the limits of your bidding before the auction begins and hold to them. Your goal is to take home a bargain not to beat a competitor. Van Horn said buyers get caught up in the bidding and “price goes out the door.”
There’s a rabbinical saying: “Passion and truth are enemies.” For items on the auction block, the lowest price will bring the greatest truth.
This article was last modified on January 8, 2023
This article was first published on August 9, 2001
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