Auction Formats and Lots: How a Lot Becomes a Live Auction

An auction lot is a sellable batch with auction-specific metadata: starting price, reserve, increment rules, duration, bidder requirements and format. The lot is what bidders bid on; the underlying assets are what the winner receives when the sale settles.

The live format

English ascending auctions are the live engine: open bids, visible current price, highest valid bid wins when the timer closes. Anti-sniping extends the timer when a bid lands near the end, so a last-second steal does not rob the seller of actual price discovery.

Roadmap formats

Dutch Clock, Sealed Bid and Japanese Clock are still roadmap engines. They remain useful product concepts and may appear in package/catalog language, but the live bidding engine today is English ascending. That distinction matters: a catalog flag is not the same thing as a settlement-safe auction machine. Ask any finance team that has met a "small exception."

Increments and reserve

Platform auction settings define bid increments, duration rules, anti-sniping windows and bidder risk policies. Reserve is the seller's floor: if the highest bid does not meet it, the lot does not sell and can enter the no-sale relist flow.

Verified lots from sellable inventory

A seller cannot auction a pallet that does not exist. Lots are sourced from sellable inventory and respect the Market/Auction channel lock. The lot detail shows grade distribution, photos, documents and erasure proof where available. Bidders should see what they are buying before they start throwing numbers at the screen.

Lot lifecycle

Draft to scheduled to live to closed to settled. Settlement writes the result, creates the downstream commercial handoff and, for sold lots, follows the same outbound and escrow path as other closed-won deals. No-sale lots can be relisted to Market when the rule allows it.