Vanda - Reverse Auction

[davegk]

Just wanted to share with you folks the reverse (Dutch) auction that's happening right now on the Vanda website.

Basically, pricing starts at list price and drops every 10 minutes until the 100 decks available are sold out or pricing reaches $1, where it will remain until sold out.

More details here: http://vandacards.com/dutch-auction

[Don Boyer]

FYI: the decks are sold out.

The Vanda Golden Edition started at $9.95 and ran out at a price of $2.45, while the Polaris Solar/Lunar sets started at $19.90 and ended at $4.90.  There was 100 of each item, and from the reverse auction start the prices dropped every 10 minutes by $0.50 for the Vanda and $1.00 for the Solaris set.

Gotta admit, that's an interesting idea for selling out your stock!

[ozfan30]

So I got a few of the golds, but the polaris set happened after I went to bed (In Europe currently). I got the golds at $2.95 per deck, so if I waited I might have saved a $1.50. However, it would have been more interesting if they didn't have the remaining stock listed. I monitored the golds from the start, and only bought once there was 20 left in stock. If I hadn't known how much was left I probably would have jumped earlier.

[davegk]

Thanks, Don!

Ozfan, I had the same conclusion after running this initial auction. I'm planning to hold another auction with this format and will tweak the parameters a little bit...probably expedite the whole auction either by shorter time increments or larger price drops, and will hide the quantity available, and possibly start with a smaller inventory in the auction lot. Overall, I was pleased with the results for this beta test

-David

[Don Boyer]

I retitled the topic, since the reverse auction is over and no longer "happening now!"  David, please use this same topic when you hold future reverse auctions, changing the title of the first post as needed.

I'm glad to hear that the beta test went smoothly for you.  I agree that people would buy sooner if there was a risk of the decks running out at any given moment and they didn't know how many remained.  You'd stand to make a little more cash that way.  But in exchange for the greater risk for your buyers, I suggest you start the auction at a "sale" price to begin with, perhaps 10%-20% below current retail or MSRP, whichever would produce the lower result.