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SitePoint Marketplace General Auction Rules

By submitting a listing, you grant SitePoint a permanent and unrestricted license to store and display the details of your auction within the SitePoint Marketplace.

Bids

  • Auction holders cannot bid on their own auction
  • Private bids may be placed through the normal bidding interface when the auction holder has allowed it. When a private bid is placed, the username of the bidder is only revealed the Auction holder. Private bids should not be placed by other means (e.g. Private Message), as they will not be upheld if they conflict with an accepted bid placed within the system.

Conditional Bids

  • A bid may contain certain conditions as defined by the bidder. These are called Conditional Bids. An example of a conditional bid might be “I will buy your site for $ amount subject to you providing me with access to your traffic statistics showing a minimum specified level of traffic”.
  • A bid for the same $ amount as a conditional bid, that has no conditions is deemed to be greater in value than that conditional bid.

Accepting and Rejecting Bids

  • All bids must be either accepted ("Accepted Bid") or rejected ("Rejected Bid") by the auction holder.
  • Bids not accepted or rejected within 72 hours will automatically be rejected on behalf of the auction holder by the system.
  • Rejected bids cannot be subsequently accepted after they are rejected.
  • For a bid to be valid its $ value must be greater than the last “Accepted Bid”, even if it is a conditional bid with more attractive conditions than the last ”Accepted Bid”.
  • For ease of use, an option will be provided for auction holders to accept all future bids from a bidder or reject all future bids from a bidder.
  • Once a bid has been accepted, it cannot be rejected
  • Bids cannot be withdrawn by the bidder

Automatically Accepting Bids

  • For ease of use, when creating an auction, the auction holder can choose to “Automatically accept all bids”. Conditional bids are the only exception to this rule.
  • Conditional bids CAN NOT be automatically accepted, they must be reviewed by the seller and dealt with within 72 hours or they will be automatically rejected on behalf of the auction holder by the system.

Buy It Now (BIN) bids

  • BIN bids cannot have conditions attached to them.
  • BIN bids must be accepted or rejected within 72 hours. If the BIN is not rejected within 72 hours the system will automatically accept it.
  • The seller may select the option to "Accept all bids" when creating the auction. in this case, BIN bids will always be accepted.
  • BIN bids may only be placed if the BIN price has not yet been matched or exceeded by an accepted bid.
  • When a BIN bid is placed, no other bids can be placed until that bid is accepted or rejected.
  • When a BIN bid is accepted, that bid is marked as the winner and the auction is marked as won.

Buy Now with PayPal

  • When a seller lists an auction and specifies their PayPal address BIN bids can only be placed by paying immediately with PayPal.
  • PayPal BIN bids cannot have conditions attached to them.
  • PayPal BIN bids may only be placed if the BIN price has not yet been matched or exceeded by an accepted bid.
  • When a PayPal BIN transaction completes, the buyer is declared as the winner and the auction is marked as won.

Auction Reserve Prices

  • Setting a reserve price is compulsory.
  • The reserve price must be equal to or greater than the minimum bid price.
  • A reserve price of as little as US$1.00 is allowed.
  • The actual reserve price will NOT be made public, however it will be made public whether the reserve price has been met or not.
  • If the reserve price has NOT been met, it can be lowered at any time during the auction period, BUT IT MUST STILL BE ABOVE THE HIGHEST ACCEPTED BID (i.e. it cannot be lowered below the current highest accepted bid).
  • The reserve price may be increased as long as no bids (whether accepted or not, conditional or unconditional) have been placed.
  • Once the reserve price has been met it CANNOT be updated.

Auction Buy It Now (BIN) prices

  • Setting a BIN price is optional.
  • The BIN price must be equal to or greater than the reserve price.
  • The auction holder may elect to prevent bidders with poor feedback profiles from placing BIN bids.
  • A 'poor feedback profile' is defined as two or more items of negative feedback with less than a 9:1 (90% positive) positive-to-negative feedback ratio.
  • The BIN price can be lowered at any time during the auction period but it must still be equal to or greater to both the reserve price and the current highest accepted bid.

Auction Completions

  • Non-BIN bids made in the final 4 hours of an auction postpone the end time to 4 hours after the bid was placed.
  • An auction is ended ("Ended Auction") once its end time expires.
  • An auction is completed ("Completed Auction") once it has ended and all bids made in the last 72 hours have either been accepted/rejected or they all consequently expired.
  • If an auction is completed and the reserve price is not met, the auction will be passed in and all accepted offers will instantly expire.
  • The highest accepted bid greater than or equal to the reserve price is legally binding
  • the auction holder is obliged to sell to the winning bidder and the winning bidder is obliged to buy – for the price of this winning bid.
  • If a completed auction has a winning bidder, the system will email the contact details of the winning bidder to the auction holder, and also email the contact details of the auction holder to the winning bidder so that they can complete the transaction.

Category Limitations

  • Auctions in the Premium Sites For Sale category MUST have a reserve price of at least US$10,000.
  • Auctions in the Established Sites For Sale category MUST have an Established date of at least 30 days ago