Chapter 94: The Madness of Three Hammers

The three different auction methods were arranged in order, and in fact, there was a great deal of purpose inside it. Clear purpose.

The first phase auctioned necessities of life. Even as secondhand goods, these things had very high practical value. As long as the pricing was not too excessive, people could accept it.

But its auction rule was snap bidding. Whoever raised a hand first got it. This kind of snap-bidding method would greatly catalyze people’s unnecessary impulses. It was possible they themselves had not even decided whether they needed the thing before raising their hands rashly under that atmosphere.

Aside from the first person who successfully raised his hand, everyone else who raised a hand would fail. This also gave people a subconscious idea: if they liked something, they had to raise their hand at the first moment.

The second phase, the bidding auction, was meant to suggest something to the people who had come to attend the auction. Through facts, it told them roughly what percentage of the original price counted as reasonable for a secondhand item.

Everyone had a ledger in his heart. Once the concept that fifty to seventy percent was a reasonable price range went deep into their minds, they would have a rough position on how much secondhand goods should sell for.

Look. Activated consumer impulse, and clear price positioning. With the help of these two concepts, the Phase Three auction became the real focus in another form.

William did not even need to arrange for anyone to tell them. They had already begun estimating these goods in their hearts. Even if they did not want to buy, they would still estimate. It was a real-time, habitual act of thinking.

When the quoted price of an item fell below a certain range, a valve would open, and the impulse to consume would keep rising in the face of returns far higher than expected.

Indeed, this bidding model was actually similar to the second phase’s bidding model. In the earlier one, as long as one person shouted a price and no one else did, a house might be traded away for ten dollars.

Phase Three was the same. As long as everyone held back, the goods would eventually fall to one dollar, and then everyone could fight for that opportunity.

But the complexity of human nature lay in its unpredictability, and in selfishness. That was also the core of William’s Secondhand Goods Auction: selfishness and self-interest.

When the price met people’s expectations, they would begin to panic, begin to feel uneasy. They would be afraid someone else might suddenly raise a hand and buy the item away. They would become hesitant.

If someone raised a hand during that process and made them fail in the snap bid, they would subconsciously raise their valuation of the final transaction price of an item. Raising it by around five percent was a reasonable figure.