Email i sent about this the October Legends auction close
This is an FYI and it went out to EVERY bidder who placed a bid in October Legends
Thank you for participating as a bidder in our OctoberLegends and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Auction. Thank you forparticipating and making the auction a great success. We set an all-time recordwith the number of unique bidders and unique winners participating in a singleauction. As many of you know we had a slowdown in the system as weapproached 10pm which culminated in a system shut down locking out my stafffrom admin controls as well as locking out bidders at roughly 1025pm. It wasbrought to my attention that not everyone who was bidding received the four (4)emails I personally sent out starting at 1030pm which was an email to biddersthat we were aware the system was slow and followed by an email from our serveras well as our outside marketing service (vertical response) that we weretaking the action outlined below. If you did not receive one of these emails itis because you either never opted into our emails, or at some pointunsubscribed. If that is the case it is impossible for us to communicateissues like this and if you wish to subscribe or opt in, please reply to thisemail and we will take steps to add you back in.
I wanted to reach out to each of youpersonally, from my personal email to ensure you know what occurred and why Itook the corrective action I took. I listened to you , my bidders two years agowhen you suggested we change our closing procedure to lot by lot so late nightsstaying up till 3-4 am were not necessary to participate in our auctions, sowhen something like this happens that caused you to stay up 90 minutes laterthan planned I know it is unexpected and a big inconvenience and I sincerelyapologize. As outlined below in the email I sent yesterday, my goal is toensure all bidders have equal footing and a fair and equal chance to bid, andno one was locked out due to system issues. I am happy we were able to getthings running so quickly. Below, for those of you who did not receive itoriginally, was the last of 5 emails sent Saturday night, this one personallyfrom me.
Thank you for being a customer of Goldin Auctions,and please note I will read and reply to all replies, and if you did notreceive any these informational emails, let me know and we will add you backin.
Thanks
Ken Goldin
From:Goldin Auctions
Date: Sun, Oct 20, 2019 1:57 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Thank You for A Great Auction, Apologies for SystemDelays- From the CEO
I would first like to thank all the bidders and consignors who participatedin October Legends. I also would like to sincerely apologize for the systemdelays that occurred starting around 10pm eastern and resulting in a totalcrash around 10:25pm. We know it adversely effected many of the bidders and wehad to react and come up with a solution immediately and implement itquickly. We understand some bidders were disappointed that extendedbidding for some of your lots was a few minutes away from ending, but at thesame time that was occurring, my own staff could not place phone bids, adminaccess was gone, and hundreds of online bidders were unable to place theirbids. I had to play King Solomon and come up with an equitable solution. To ensure every bidder HAD A FAIR AND EQUAL CHANCE to win their lots, weextended the bidding process. In hindsight had I known the servers would be upand running up to speed as quickly as they were, i would have done it to 11pmand not midnight, but there was no way of knowing when i made the call.
While some bidders were understandably disappointed with thisextension, please keep in mind, in reality, many people who wanted to bid onthose lots were shut out from the system. this is NOT what we want to happen onauction close night, but it appears that some group is going after the auctionhouses closing nights, as it happened to 2 other major players in our industryon their closing nights, including one company which is still offline a full 24hours later!
So, we apologize greatly for the inconvenience, and i canassure you my software provider and server company are going to take whateversteps necessary in the future, no matter how expensive they are , to ensure asmooth and enjoyable bidding process at all times. luckily we had no hiccupsafter that and we were able to have a 'extended' extended bidding period toensure everyone had a chance to bid on the items they wanted, and a smooth closewith no hiccups. The auction was a great success and we had moreindividual bidders then ever in any previous auction in our history. We thankyou and if you wish to contact me directly please reply to the email and wewill answer every response.
Sincerely
Ken Goldin
Founder and CEO
KenGoldin
Chief ExecutiveOfficer
Goldin Auctions
160 E. 9th AvenueSuite A
Runnemede, NJ08078
856-767-8550
