A dealer near me was holding an auction on used inventory. There were 25 bikes in total and they only sold 3 bikes. They only thing they sold were bikes at least five years old --a 2009 Sportster, CVO Fat Bob, and an older Police Road King with high mileage. Each of them only had one bidder. The prices were marked down from the base sticker that they had listed on the used bikes but those sticker prices were really inflated.

It was a bit comical as a good number of people were there but just standing around watching nobody bid on anything for about a half-hour. They hired an auctioneer to come in and try to make it all official and stuff. But he was getting flustered. He was like "Who will give me 15 , give me 15, 15 here" Nobody at all was even showing any interest. They went through ten bikes before someone even bid on anything. People just started going over to the free hot dogs and beer. After everyone tore up the hotdogs and free beer they went home. I bet they don't try that again. Fail.

 

Auictions that have a reserve price usually do fail.
Had the auction been "no reserve" all the bikes would sell.
Bidders expect deals not another way to sell retail.

 

Well, I can see the dealer wanting to set a reserve/minimum bid. But the reserves struck me as what you would probably realistically get from the dealer if you walked in off the street and haggled over the price of the used bike. So in that sense they sold three bikes they might not have sold without the auction. Not a complete fail. But considering they paid the auctioneer and went through all that trouble and only sold two older used bikes and one 2008 CVO, they probably wouldn't consider it worth the effort again. I wouldn't if I owned the dealer. But then again, it did bring people in and maybe they sold new bikes. Who knows. But as an auction, it was pretty much a joke.

 

Most auctions with a Reserve price still start at a low number - not the reserve price.....the thought is sometimes when stye bidding starts at a low price - it can cause a stir with hopes of hitting the reserve...if you start the bids at the Reserve and there is cautious interest, you have the results as you just described with everyone thinking it should be cheaper

 

I think the dealer was banking on people hearing the word "auction" and associating it with police auctions and repo auctions, where people have been reported to walk away with major scores.

 

It sounds like the only thing the people wanted to score was free food and drinks.