Auctions

Potential buyers participate in an open or closed sales event by placing competitive bids on goods or services. Auctions are widespread because buyers and sellers assume they will get fair value acquiring or selling assets.

Auctions have three elements for buyers:

1. Potential buyers express a desire in some way to purchase a good or service.

2. Their longing translates into a determination of a final price for the product

3. The price (or certain other parameters) determines the acquisition of the auctioned item.

Price discovery remains the most notable reason for holding auctions. When an item's price is non-deterministic or generally unknown, auctions are viable to fetch the best possible price for it. The most classic auction type remains the English Auction, widely popularized in the movies and the media. This is where potential buyers announce higher bids to 'win' the product, and the highest bidder wins.

Many more auction types exist that can be fun and easily used for non-deterministic or deterministic priced products. Deterministic priced products are ones where generally the price of the product is known and accepted, for example, the latest iPhone.

ONLINE AUCTIONS

The advent of the Internet has catapulted the expansion of online or electronic auctions - also called e-auctions or eAuctions - as a leading growth sector in e-commerce. Like their traditional counterparts, online auctions are varied and not always mutually exclusive.

The predictions of the early pioneers of online auctions have been greatly exceeded for several reasons:

  • They are not geographically confined.

  • One's physical presence is not required.

  • Physical space is unnecessary

  • Time zones and bidding times and duration are inconsequential.

  • There are no restrictions on bidder numbers.

The rapid growth in online auctions came with its significant share of unlawful activities. Online auctions are B2B, B2C, C2C, or D2C auctions.

Amazon and eBay have been the two most successful online merchants for decades. While eBay conducts traditional e-commerce the same as Amazon, its enhanced popularity resides in its auction platform. Amazon's success can be attributable to its consistent competitive pricing.

All e-commerce sites, whatever their business model, add up to a similar result: they consistently deliver lower prices than their competitors. The availability of price comparison on the Internet has collapsed how companies can differentiate themselves. Sites that offer low prices always gain popularity through viral marketing and search engines.

Without the market share of giants like Amazon or Walmart, new e-commerce entrants must find a way to compete. The difficult challenge of delivering genuine products or services at competitive prices while remaining profitable calls for profound innovation, which is eBay's precise leverage.

Notwithstanding their success and popularity, centralised online auction sites like eBay are not without challenges, disappointments, and risks. Most people lost out on an item they desperately sought. The product may not always be reasonably priced. There is no way of knowing if the auction is rigged. And the platform owner levies sellers a hefty commission to use the site.

What if there was a solution to these problems?

BLOCKCHAIN BASED AUCTIONS

New digital-age technology allows for immutable blockchains to store information openly and publicly about every bid on every auction that takes place on a digital platform. At its simplest, blockchain auctions are held on the blockchain that uses smart contracts to match buyers and sellers. Middle agents are unnecessary, thus eliminating commissions.

AuctionX is a decentralised digital auction platform for the auctioning of tangible goods, digital assets (NFTs), experiences, and services.

AuctionX boasts multiple fun-filled auction models on its platform. Team AuctionX continuously studies the best auction mechanisms prevalent in various parts of the world and incorporates them on the AuctionX platform. Some of the auction mechanisms have a zero-loss winning mechanism, giving the best returns to its participants.

Traditionally, goods or services have been bought online for a fixed price, with slight variations as the platforms change. For instance, an iPad might cost $US 1000 online at Amazon, $US998 with Walmart, and $US1010 from the Apple online store. Because the prices are fixed, there is no element of luck or skill in purchasing them from these vendors.

AuctionX brings thrill and excitement to the otherwise mundane act of digital auctions by transforming online bidding and buying into winning!

Across the entire act of shopping, there are two high-emotion events:

1. The payment, with its not-so-happy emotion, and

2. The product delivery, with its AHA! moment and happy emotion.

AuctionX integrates the elements of luck and skill with gamification. This amplifies the AHA! moment multifold because it translates the ‘act of shopping’ to an ‘experience of winning’. And winning is a much more powerful emotion than shopping! This is what makes AuctionX unique. On top of that, wherever possible, there is a near-zero financial risk in many of the auction models on offer to the AuctionX community. With AuctionX, you may win, but you don’t lose!

RETAIL GAMIFICATION

Increasingly, online auctions are utilizing game design, elements, and mechanics to captivate and keep a loyal following. Engagement, instant feedback, rewards, levelling up, and fun are critical factors for releasing dopamine, the brain chemical that drives mood and feelings of reward and motivation.

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