Dutch Auctions are auctions with multiple quantities of the same item.
If a seller has two (or more) of the same item, they may elect to list them as a Dutch Auction rather an individually. Dutch Listings may be fixed priced, or in auction format.
In a Fixed Price Dutch Listing, buyers may use the Buy Now feature (no bidding) just as in normal listings, except that they get to enter a quantity of how many items they want to purchase.
In Dutch Auction Listings, buyers may bid on items just as in normal listings, but may enter a quantity of how many items they would like to bid on. Bids entered are per/item. If there are enough items to go around, Webstore will attempt to assign winners to as many bidders as possible, at the lowest successful bids.
To better explain how winners are assigned in Dutch Auctions, the following examples are provided:
Example #1: Dutch Auction for 2 items, starting bid $1.00:
Bidder A enters a max bid of $1.00
Bidder B enters a max bid of $2.00
Bidder C enters a max bid of $3.00
Only Bidders B and C would be winning bidders and they would all pay $2.00
Bidder A would have had to bid a higher amount before the
auction ended to stay in the running (because there were 3 bidders and
only 2 items).
In this scenario, all successful bidders will pay the same price, which is the lowest successful bid.
Dutch auctions at Webstore can behave somewhat like concurrent individual auctions because our system will attempt to assign winners to all items available in a dutch auction. Lets explore a case where multiple Bidders enter identical bids. In this case, it may be possible for successful bidders to end up paying different prices for the same item at the end of auction.
Example #2: Dutch Auction for 2 items, starting bid $1.00:
Bidder A bids $1.00
(minimum bid remains $1.00 until all available items have have reached min bid)
Bidder B joins in with bid of $1.00
(minimum bid is now $1.25 since both items have reached previous min bid)
Bidder C joins in with bid of $1.25
Current Status:
<<< System tries to sell all items >>>
Bidder C is a guaranteed winner with highest overall bid of $1.25
Bidder A has winning bid of $1.00
(minimum bid is still $1.25 until both items have reached current min bid)
Bidder B (who received an outbid notice) returns and bids $1.25
Current Status:
<<< System tries to sell all items >>>
Both Bidder C and B now have winning bids of $1.25
(minimum bid is now $1.50 since both items have reached previous min bid)
Bidder A returns and bids $1.50
AUCTION ENDS:
<<< System tries to sell all items >>>
Bidder A is a guaranteed winner with highest overall bid of $1.50
Bidder C has winning bid of $1.25
Bidder B misses out. NOTE: B also had a $1.25 bid. When multiple bidders have the same high bid in a dutch auction, and there aren't enough items to satisfy all bidders, the bidder who entered their bid first get's the item.
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