Understanding how an auction is structured is essential to understanding how it behaves.
Different auction formats create different buyer experiences, seller controls, closing rules, and governance requirements. A live auction works differently from a timed auction. A hybrid auction introduces a different relationship between digital bidding and final approval. A tender or sealed bid process introduces different rules around confidentiality, submission, and manual review.
This section explains the main auction structures used across online and hybrid auction environments, along with the shared terms and governance concepts that shape how those auctions run in practice. It also includes the trust, transparency, and accountability principles that support clear and well-governed auction operations.
A live auction is a real-time sale led by an auctioneer. Bids may come from the room, by telephone, by absentee instruction, or online, but the auctioneer controls the pace of bidding and accepts the final bid when the lot is sold.
Topics covered include simulcast auctions, webcast auctions, clerking, absentee bidding, and the governance of live auction events.
Timed auctions allow bidders to place bids over a defined bidding window, with each lot closing according to scheduled platform rules rather than an auctioneer’s live call.
Topics covered include hard close, soft close, popcorn bidding, staggered closing, cascading lot closing, bid extensions, maximum bids, power bids, and quick bids.
Hybrid auctions combine timed bidding behaviour with a live auction event or approval process, allowing bids to be captured digitally before the final result is confirmed through a live or manual governance layer.
Topics covered include pre-bidding, live transition, manual close, and how captured bids may remain pending approval until reviewed lot by lot.
Infinite auctions are an auction type where the lot does not move toward a conventional fixed closing point in the same way as a scheduled timed auction.
Topics covered include always-on auction environments, differences between timed and infinite formats, and the governance rules that apply when lots remain open within an ongoing auction structure.
Reverse auctions use the same core timing logic as timed auctions, but the bidding direction is reversed. Instead of buyers competing upward to buy a lot, participants compete downward to improve their offer.
Topics covered include downward bidding, timed-auction mechanics in reverse, procurement-style competition, and the governance rules that support clear supplier comparison.
Tender and sealed bid auctions use confidential or deadline-based submission processes rather than open visible bidding.
Topics covered include sealed bids, tender formats, best-and-final offers, manual close, and how results may remain pending until formally reviewed and approved.
Some auction terms apply across multiple formats rather than belonging to one auction type alone.
This includes terms such as opening bid, reserve price, online preview, quick bid, power bid, buy-it-now, maximum bid, manual close, offer in an auction, and auction terms and conditions.
