How Bid Boss auctions work, start to finish

Bid Boss runs one online liquidation auction a week from a warehouse in Etobicoke, Ontario. It opens on a Wednesday and closes the following Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern. Nothing in it has a reserve.

The process is simpler than it looks, and the parts that catch people out are the parts we make obvious. The whole cycle follows.

What is actually in the auction

A fresh catalogue goes up each week: returns, overstock, closeouts and consignments from major retail and marketplace channels. It spans general merchandise, because that is what large retailers return.

Every unit is identified and inspected individually before it is listed. Most liquidation is sold by the pallet or described in a sentence, and the buyer finds out what they bought after it arrives. Here, each lot carries a grade computed from a fixed set of inspection answers, and a condition card summarising what was checked and what was found.

You can read the full standard on how we grade.

Step one: the auction opens

A new catalogue goes live each Wednesday. You can browse it without an account.

Bidding itself happens on HiBid, where a free account gets you quick approval. The catalogue is built here from our own records, so what you read on a lot page is what our floor recorded, not a scrape of somebody else's listing.

Step two: you bid

There is no reserve on anything. The highest bid at close wins the lot, whatever that bid is.

Opening bids start low, and many lots open at $5. Lots that receive no bids may be offered again in a later auction. The same item can close at very different numbers on different weeks, because the bidding in the room decides it and nothing else does.

The close is a soft close: a bid placed in the final moments extends that lot rather than ending it. You cannot snipe a lot at Bid Boss, and you do not need to sit at your keyboard at 6:59 PM to compete.

No reserve. Highest bidder wins. Every bid is binding. That is the rule worth reading twice, and it is why the grade, the condition card and the fee formula come first.

Step three: your all-in price

Three charges sit on top of your bid, and there are no others:

• the buyer's premium, 15% of your bid
• handling, $1.50 per lot, or $10 for a pallet lot
• HST, applied to the bid, the premium and the handling

A $20 bid works out like this: $3.00 premium, $1.50 handling, $3.19 HST, $27.69 total.

You can work that number out before you bid, not discover it at checkout. There is a calculator on the fees page that runs the same arithmetic our invoices use, so you can check any bid before you place it.

Step four: you win, we invoice

When the auction closes, every winner is invoiced automatically. You get an email with a link.

If this is your first win, the invoice email is where everything starts: it carries your lot, your total and the reference code that matches your payment to your order.

Your invoice is itemised per lot: hammer, premium, handling and tax, on separate lines.

Step five: you choose pickup or shipping

You pick one, and you can change it. Switching to shipping is free before the pickup deadline. Switching from shipping back to pickup is available until your order ships and carries a fee of the greater of $20 or 15% of the shipping charge, because packing starts once you choose shipping.

Collection from Etobicoke is free. Shipping is available Canada-wide and is priced for your actual packed order. After the auction, request shipping and you will receive a quote. Nothing dispatches until you approve it, and shipping is paid before release. You approve it before anything ships.

Choose carefully, because asking for shipping cannot be undone, and refusing a delivered parcel is not a return. The pickup and shipping page sets out both routes in full.

Step six: you pay within 48 hours

Payment is due in full within forty-eight (48) hours of auction close. For eligible customers, the card on file may be automatically charged after close unless another payment method was requested at registration. Accepted methods: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, debit, Interac e-Transfer, and cash at pickup.

An e-Transfer carries a reference code that matches your payment to your order automatically. Send it without the code and it takes longer to land.

Step seven: you collect, or we ship

Pickup runs for three days after each auction closes, by appointment. Booking a slot gives you a barcode; bring it and photo ID. Your order is picked before you arrive, so check-in takes seconds.

Orders are collected in full. There is no partial pickup.

The deadline is firm, and it is the rule most worth understanding rather than just obeying. A warehouse full of uncollected orders stops the next auction being catalogued, which is why it exists. In practice, a message before the deadline almost always solves it.

All items must be picked up, or shipping requested, by Saturday at 3:00 PM following the auction. If an item is not collected and no shipping has been requested by then, we will notify you by email and text message, and you will have seven (7) more days to collect it or request shipping. A storage fee of $5.00 per lot per day applies from the Saturday deadline, and you authorize us to charge it to your card on file. An item still not collected or requested seven (7) days after that notice is deemed abandoned, and you authorize us to resell it on your behalf. Your original purchase is not cancelled or refunded. From the resale proceeds we deduct the storage fees, an abandonment fee equal to the greater of $25.00 or twenty-five percent (25%) of your original lot price, and the costs of resale; any remaining balance is held for you and paid on written request. Two abandoned purchases result in permanent suspension of bidding privileges.

If you chose shipping, your order joins the packing queue instead, and you can watch it move: packed, rated, charged, labelled, dispatched, tracked. Every shipment goes signature-required.

If something is wrong

New / Overstock, Grade A and Grade B items carry a claim window for major functional defects of twenty-four (24) hours from pickup or confirmed delivery, seven (7) days for accounts verified as resellers, and fourteen (14) days only under a signed reseller addendum. Grade C and Grade D items are final sale as to condition. Regardless of grade, an item that is the wrong item or materially misdescribed is always reviewable. C and D are described in detail before you bid and priced accordingly.

Two things are reviewable whatever the grade: the wrong item was sent, or a critical component was missing and was not disclosed. Those are our mistakes, and the grade does not shield them.

Browse, bid with no reserve, work out your exact total with the calculator, pay within 48 hours, then collect in Etobicoke or have it shipped. The rest of the work (inspecting, grading, photographing, cataloguing and answering your questions) happens before the lot ever reaches you.

Ready to look? Start with the current auction, or read how we grade first if you want to know exactly what the words on a lot page mean. The buyer FAQ answers the rest, and the full rules are in the buyer terms.