... Michael. The differences you described are, to my mind, mere procedural matters. Just different ways of getting to the fundamental objective -- which, as I said, is for potential buyers to bid on an item being offered by a seller, ostensibly to be sold to the highest bidder.

As for your four "differences":

>> 1. Online auctions do not offer the bidder the opportunity to preview the
>> items offered, while live auctions do allow the bidder to physically inspect
>> the items prior to bidding.

Technically, that's true. But, most eBay ads (at least in the areas I have looked at) include photographs or scans which enable a "preview" of sorts. And, of course, if you live close enough to do so, I suppose you could ask the seller to permit a live preview (say of a car or real estate or other expensive item).

>> 2. Live auctions are three party transactions, bidders bid via an auctioneer
>> on items owned by a third party, then pay the auctioneer who deducts his fee
>> and pays the balance to the seller. Online auctions are two party
>> transactions, seller and buyer. The auctioneer is an agent of the seller in
>> the live auction environment, there is no auctioneer as such in the online
>> situation.

This is another distinction without a real difference. Does the online "host" of these auctions receive a fee from the seller? Of course. The key to your comment is that eBay is not an auctioneer "as such"; eBay may not be an "auctioneer" in the traditional sense, but serves exactly the same "fundamental" purpose. Legal technicalities and nit-picking aside, they look pretty much the same to me.

>> 3. Live auctions continue until all bidders have an opportunity to make their
>> best bid and the auctioneer gavels the auction closed, while online auctions
>> end at a set date and time.

On eBay, of course, you are exactly right. However, there's absolutely no reason why that has to be the case. In fact, I have written to eBay to suggest an alternative procedure which would, in effect, recreate the live auction approach (extend the end of the auction each time there is another bid until some specified period of time passes with no further bid).

>> 4. In many live auction situations, a seller can bid dynamically on his own
>> items, or the auctioneer can place bids on behalf of the seller (as long as
>> the bidders are notified of this before the auction begins), this is
>> prohibited on online auction venues.

Once again, you are correct regarding eBay (though as I recall that wasn't always the case). However, once again there is no reason why it has to be this way. The "rules" could just as easily permit the seller to bid on his own material "as long as the bidders are notified of this before the auction begins". My recollection is that eBay at one time allowed sellers to enter one bid on their own items. There is no magic to the "no shill bidding rule" on eBay. As for other online auctions, I haven't participated in any recently except Yahoo, so will have to take your word for the fact that this rule is uniform in all online auction venues.

BTW:

>> You started a new thread about this? OK, if that's what you want.

Actually, I didn't start a new thread. I was gone for three days (as mentioned in a separate thread) and posted this response just before your message was moved to the archives. Once that happened, this response was left "hanging" as though it were a new message.

>> Finally, you say "I suspect that the real "fundamental difference" here is
>> that Katie (and Peter) are buyers and you are a seller." Now, that's the
>> crux of it, isn't it, Jim. Include yourself in that group. Sellers against
>> buyers? Buyers are always right and sellers are always wrong? Your logic
>> seems to come from someonewho only considers the buyers side of a situation,
>> rather than both sides, and your transaction history reflects that.

Of course that's the crux of it and yes, I include myself in the "buyer" group, as I am not an eBay seller. But, I didn't say that buyers are always right and sellers are always wrong. My point is that the rules should apply the same way to both sides; if it's okay for the seller to cancel the bids because he gets a better offer offline, then it ought to be okay for the buyer to cancel his bid because he gets a better price offline. Pretty simple, actually.

----- jim o\-S