[GSAS-board] auctopsy 2007

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

The kids are tucked in, and the car unloaded.  Here are the numbers off 
the computer, as always, compared with previous 
years...

                2007    2006    2005    2004    2003    2002    2001    2000


lots            397     260     408     317     336     322     289     310 
(411)
bidders         60      41      63      55      49      71      54      57


gross           2954    $1925   $3604   $2729   $2148   $2517   $2923   $2485
-splits          925    $628     $881    $834    $611    $486    $869    $672
net             2029    $1297   $2723   $1537   $2031   $2054   $1754


Auction rate = 2.0 items per minute.  Seems to be our max on the general 
auction.  We were done on time, approximately 3 hours, 10 minutes.

There is probably $50-75 or so less actual income due to credits given for 
items that people did not actually buy.

Observations about the numbers:  Gross was 2nd highest in 8 years.  The 
net was pretty darn good, on the upper end (if 2005 counts as an 
anomolously great year).  Broke the record for amount paid out in splits, 
which in itself is something to be happy about.  Like I said after the 
plant auction, part of the purpose of the club is to allow members to sell 
off their fish, plants and (in my case) old crap in my garage that 
someone else might be able to use.

It was nice that we now had the option of telling a late seller to take 
their tags and fill them out elsewhere, rather than having to enter their 
stuff and break the flow of the auction.

The PA worked very well, it seemed, though the wireless receiver was too 
close to a remote computer station that we ended up having to scrap (RF 
interference).  It was OK, though.  I think the remote workstation wasn't 
necessary.

We had all the computers working the entire auction, and Rick brought one 
that would have acted as backup in case of disasters similar to previous 
years. :)

Though some labels were waterlogged, we didn't seem to have a lot of lost 
labels this time.  A couple here  & there, but they got figured out.

The approach of "protect Rick" worked very well.  Rick was responsible for 
getting the bids recorded, and if someone wanted to check out or had 
questions, they were directed to wait until we were caught up.  So nobody 
checked out while we were in the 15-minute "plant moving frenzy", and 
there was a little bit of a run on the computers at the end, but I don't 
think anyone was really inconvenienced.  I wish we has at least one other 
person trained on the computers, but we were low on staff today and I 
think having as many runners as possible was key.

We had enough change, and the approach of keeping the secret stuff behind 
the wall near the desk worked great for me.

Issues:

For some reason there were a lot of misrecorded bids this time around.  a 
lot of this was directly due to one bidder not putting up his card, but 
instead saying his number, which it turned out, was not the right number. 
But there were some others that just didn't make sense.

I noticed that a lot of the sellers and runners were ambiguous in their 
numbering (0's that looked like 6's, etc), so we should work on that next 
time.  This may have caused some of the misrecorded items. (There also 
were a lot of missing item descriptions, but nothing that became a 
problem.)

Two people walked out without their drivers' licenses.

One person expressed concern about the somewhat coercive, possibly shaming 
style of our new auctioneer ("Hey, put that card back up!").  I wasn't 
sure from my vantage point, head down in the computers.

Some people had some problems not seeing a value for how much they owed or 
were owed when the splits were taken into account.  Rick also noted that 
the receipt doesn't show the amount they actually paid (which can be one 
of two things... either counting or not counting the splits).  I will say 
that this historically has evolved.  Initially the club's policy was that 
splits were always paid out AFTER the auction, not during the auction.  As 
you guys know, a seller might check out early and still have to be mailed 
a split check (which is the case today).  Or there is an adjustment made 
to a sale ("Hey, I didn't pay $30 for that 10-gallon tank") and then we 
have to ask for money BACK from a seller, or eat the $18 split.  There may 
be some cases of that here as well.

But I digress.  The receipt SHOULD have the amount we think they actually 
paid, as well as both "amount bought" (already there) and "amount bought - 
splits".


Tasks for the programmer, to implement before next time:

   1. Figure out a way to reduce ambiguous bidder numbers.  As they're 
already 3-digits, maybe I could randomize them within the space of 
100-999.  As we're not assembling the bags "backstage", there is no 
requirement of having them in any order now.

   2. Add a field for noting we took their driver's license.  On the web 
screen, include large red "DID THEY GET THEIR DRIVERS LICENSE BACK?" and 
also similar message on their printout.

   3. Modify printout to include "amount paid" and "amount bought - splits".



Split checks to be mailed:

Nate McCarthy: $3.60

Linda Knap: $63.60

Christine Ranegger: $15

Michael Roberts: $22.80 -- I think this is a mistake.  He's one of the 
guys who left his driver's license, and it shows him selling a Shrimp.  I 
wonder if that's actually supposed to be Hiro?

Tara Hirjak: $9.60


That is all.  Great job everyone!

   - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com
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