1.7

How much work is an auction?


If it's a big auction, say, 500 or more items, then it is a lot of work -- you need to be tenacious to the bone. But if you want to do a small auction with 10 items, you'll probably only have to spend about 10 hours. Don't embark on a large auction until you have tried a small one first.

Assuming you've already got your items (sets, catalogs, whatever) assembled and ready to go, figure about 5-20 minutes per item for a description in your announcement posting, another 30 minutes or more to prepare each posting, about 1-2 minutes per bid if you're doing it by hand, and around 20-30 minutes per bidder when it comes time to box everything up.

Here is an extreme example: The largest ever LEGO® auction -- named "AucZILLA" -- consisted of 3,460 LEGO® items up for bid -- a total of over 30,000 LEGO® pieces and 650 mini-figures -- the result of breaking up 496 brand-new LEGO® sets. The auction was launched on February 26, 1995, had 31 announcement postings, and was concluded on May 15, 1995, having processed over 20,000 bids from 105 bidders around the world and having sent out over 6,000 separate e-mail updates totalling 135 megabytes of Internet traffic. 85 bidders had winning totals and received packages between May and July, 1995. Preparation for the auction began in November, 1994. The auctioneer estimated over 600 hours of work went into the auction, including shopping, sorting, software design, on-line interaction, and packing.

It is doubtful that any Internet auctioneer has ever overestimated the amount of work involved in his/her auction. Nevertheless, the same people get into it again and again in bigger ways each passing season. It is addicting.


8 Jan 96 [TSL]