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Differences in the Types of Auctions That Take Place Around the World

Auctions are those events where properties or goods are sold to the highest bidder. Auctions are mostly public events, where bidders make a series of bids and purchase a particular item for a high price. During auctions, bidders decide the price of an item rather than the seller. It depends on bidders to decide the amount they would want to pay for a specific item. During an auction, a bid is a proof of a legal binding. Bidders agree to pay the amount that they have bid. In a high profile auction, bidders may have to pay a deposit in escrow accounts or give a proof that they can pay for those items.

Types of Auctions:

Different types of auctions take place around the world. Below mentioned are some types of auctions:

1. English auction:
This is a basic type of auction. In this type, people can see the item and then start bidding. Bidders slowly raise the value of their bid until everyone gives up. The highest bidder is the winner. An auctioneer manages an auction, keeps records of the on going bid and decides the winner. Sometimes, the seller will quote a minimum amount for an item to the auctioneer, below which the auctioneer cannot sell that item.

2. Dutch auction:
In this type, the auctioneer sets a particular price and then gradually lowers the price. People in public will start bidding and later decide which prices are suitable for the item. A seller may use this type of auction to sell large quantities of same products to the public. For instance, a seller may want to sell a large amount of hay and will thus, decide to sell this hay to people for the same amount, once a reasonable price is decided.

3. Silent auction:
In this type, the bidders in public will present their bids in a sealed format. These sealed bids open at the same time and bidder with the highest bid wins. There could be a modification in this type of auction. The bidders are allotted a specific period to bid. They can roam in a room displaying the items, and write their bids on an associated sheet of paper. The bidders are allowed to see bids of other bidders and can choose a higher price for an item. At the end of the allotted time, bidder with the highest bid is the winner.

Examples of Auctions:

Auctions can be of two types either public or private. Sellers may trade any kind of items in both types of auctions. Some areas where auctions take place are:

1. Antique auction: An antique auction consists of a trade opportunity as well as provides entertainment.

2. Collectable auction: In a collectable auction, the seller may put up collectables like coins, vintage cars, luxury, stamps, real estate, and luxury for sale.

3. Wine auction: In wine auction, bidders can bid for rare wine, which may not be available in retail wine shops.

4. Horse auction: Bidders can bid for young horses of the best breed.

5. Livestock auction: In livestock auction, bidders can buy pigs, sheep, cattle, and other livestock.

The other examples of auctions may not be public. These auctions are for bidders from corporate levels. Some examples of private auctions are:

1. Timber auction
2. Spectrum auction
3. Electricity auction
4. Debit auction
5. Environmental auction
6. Auto auction
7. Electronic market auction
8. Sales of business auction

Bidders in an auction need to examine the items displayed and decide an appropriate price for an item. Thus, auctions help buyers in getting the best deals and in gaining better profits for sellers.

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Education Will Make You Successful

In our society today, people believe in furthering their education in order to become successful. At the same time, everyday more and more young people drop out of school because they feel unmotivated and uninspired to keep on going with their school work. Every student has different problems to deal with in his/her life. Each student that drops out either loses interest in their education or has too much stress on their hands to balance school and other problems that they are facing. In order to better our society, the most useful career a young person could choose would be Education.

After getting a high school diploma, the best thing a person can do is go to college. For a young person, the best major to choose to help them in the future is education. Choosing education as a major would help our society by educating students on a subject that they have never been introduced to before such as math, English, reading, math, and social studies. A young person has the choice to become either an elementary, middle, or high school teacher. An elementary teacher educates students in their basic skills such as math, reading, science, and social studies which paves the road for a student’s future. The duties of a middle school teacher are to further the learning of the basic studies for a better understanding of a subject. Being a high school teacher means that you are responsible for helping a student get to the point of graduation. Their duty is to make sure that all of their students reach that point and to not let them drop out of school.

An education is looked upon as a discipline. It shows how self-disciplined one is by going to school and making it to graduation. School is one of the best places to learn how to be independent and dependent at the same time. A student learns to be independent by learning how to believe in themselves by doing their homework and showing up to school to learn. Students learn how to go on with their day in school on their own by not having their parents around. Not only does a student become independent but also dependent. A student becomes dependent on their teachers.

Choosing education as a major would not only help the students in the school but it would also help themselves in becoming more efficient in a subject. Becoming an educator not only allows someone to help other people but to inspire them also. They could help inspire and motivate students into furthering their education and showing them how having a high education such as a degree in a certain subject that they enjoy could get them far in life. Having an education is one of the most valuable things that one person could have and by majoring in education would not only affect them but also their community.

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We Are Not Marketing To The Web

The medium is the message – but it’s still a message
From ancient history right up until the web came into being all marketing has been directed at people. But now, it seems, that marketing people are directing their focus onto the web as though this medium is doing the buying.

Our first clue is that almost every business home page never even mentions the market they sell to. All of these misguided business home pages are presenting themselves to the web instead of to their respective markets. The web is the medium not our market. We need to channel our marketing through the web, not to the web.

Still, you hear web marketing and web design jargon going on about selling to the web. We may know that they really mean our market on the web, but the misguided focus says something about the lack of awareness and the lack of marketing focus.

We never thought newspapers did the buying, not was television seen as anything more than a medium. Then along comes the spider-web and marketing people stopped knowing what they were doing.

All of a sudden we could sell to the world
Except that it never was true, but that kind of thinking put us into some kind of fairy land and reality was ignored. The reality is that it is not the world we are selling to… it is our web market we want to reach.

Who are they? What do we call them? What do they really want? How do we get their attention?

We failed to ask these questions when we believed we could simply present ourselves to the web medium and that’s all we needed to do. We were led to believe that the web would respond because those anonymous buyers that make up the web would buy our products.

This is why almost every small business marketing on the web isn’t selling enough to support their advertising, let alone make a profit? Why do you think that is? Why isn’t that faceless web buying from us?

Do you think that it may be because our business web site never gave our market a face they would recognize? Hmmm. Does a light come on?

Take a closer look at your own web site
You could go to any business web site, even your own, and read what’s on the home page. Did you see any mention of the target market? Or did you just see paragraphs all about the business behind the web site?

Oh for sure, businesses like to talk about themselves because they think that’s important, and it is, but not right away. And, anyway, that’s what you have an ABOUT page for.

If a small business home page doesn’t begin with a focus on the market it will never break them out of their preoccupation. You can’t call out to your market and not use their name, and you can’t use such a broad name where one-size fits all.

When I was in junior high school I had a substitute teacher briefly for one of my classes. One day I was daydreaming and off in the clouds fixing the world or destroying alien beings… whatever, but I was long gone in my own world – just like your market.

The substitute teacher forgot my name was Edward and she called me Allen. I didn’t respond – she wasn’t talking to me. She spoke louder calling me Allen and I still didn’t respond. Then she moved in closer and with a really loud voice that I couldn’t ignore anymore, regardless of using the wrong name, and I snapped out of my preoccupation.

Of course, everyone in the class got a good laugh out of that, but if she were a salesperson and I was the market there would be no sale. Not even after the market (me) was brought to awareness.

What’s my point?
The point is that marketing to the web means that your web site is not marketing to people at all, it is trying to market to a huge anonymous group made up of every market in the world. This happens when your marketing people do not have a clear focus of the market and your web market is not responding because you are not calling them by name.

Just because every web user is anonymous and we cannot know their individual name until they provide it for us doesn’t mean that we cannot describe a market segment they belong to. And just because every web user controls their own web experience and can cut us off mid-sentence doesn’t mean that we cannot grab their attention by giving them what they simply can’t resist.

To do this we need to stop calling people by the wrong name, or by no name at all. We need to first get their attention by using the name of the marketing segment they belong to. When we don’t have individual names but we can group like minded people into a marketing segment and then provide that group with an accurate descriptive name.

Marketing to the world
Run! Run as fast as you can when a web designer tells you that your web site can “sell to the world.” If you thought for one moment then you would realize that not everyone in the world wants what you have to offer. In fact, not everyone in your city wants what you have to offer.

If your brand dominated the market in your city you would be enormously successful and the next step up to regional sales would be easier. Then state or province wide sales before your business goes national. Global marketing is a long way off for us, and so we are wise to start close to home.

And global marketing is not “selling to the world” either because that is just a pipe dream but global sales are possible – even on a small scale. In fact, as a niche market, international sales is not out of reach.