Bidding Types

Auction direction and bidding behavior are separate choices.

Choice	Behavior
Normal	Higher valid bids lead.
Reverse	Lower valid bids lead.
Proxy	The system responds to competing bids using a bidder’s submitted limit.
Sealed	Bids are private; the winner is selected from the submitted bids.

Choose normal or reverse on each auction product. Proxy and sealed bidding are additional controls, rather than separate product types.

Which should I use?

• Use normal bidding for a conventional sale to the highest bidder.
• Use reverse bidding when lower offers should win.
• Enable proxy bidding when customers should enter their limit and let the system respond automatically.
• Enable sealed bidding when competing offers should remain private.

When sealed bidding is enabled, the bidding engine uses its sealed-bid path. Do not describe the resulting auction as an ordinary public proxy auction, even if both options were selected.

See Proxy Bidding and Sealed Bidding for the detailed behavior.

Demo example

Reverse auction showing the service brief, current bid, and lower next offer.