Every item you sell in a live show goes out in one of two selling formats. It either opens for bidding as a live auction, or it carries a fixed price that any viewer can take while the item is on screen. The choice changes how you price, how you present, and how much you can predict about what you will actually be paid.
The two formats side by side
A Buy It Now item has a fixed price set before the show starts. From the moment the host pins it, any viewer can buy it at that price, and the first buyer to complete checkout takes it. If you have several units, several buyers can take one each. There is no timer and no bidding: the price you set is the price you get.
A live auction item has a starting price instead. When the item is on camera, the host opens a countdown, viewers bid against each other, and the highest bidder at the close wins one unit. The order is created automatically the moment the auction ends, and the winning buyer's saved payment method is charged without any further step from you.
The format follows the price you give the item. An item listed with a starting price runs as an auction; an item listed with a fixed price is bought at that price. Decide which one an item is before you attach it to a show, because that decision shapes everything that happens to it on air.
How a live auction actually prices your item
Bidding opens at your starting price. The first bid has to meet that price, and every bid after it has to clear the current price by at least one bid increment. The increment scales with the amount at stake rather than staying flat: it is one euro at the bottom of the range and grows by roughly one euro for every ten euros of price, so a twenty euro item moves in small steps and a four hundred euro item does not crawl.
Buyers bid with a private maximum. Somebody enters the most they are prepared to pay, and the platform bids on their behalf, raising the visible price only as far as it needs to in order to stay in front. Nobody else sees that maximum. A maximum is binding once placed and can only be raised, never lowered or withdrawn.
That mechanic has an important consequence for sellers. The visible price is set one increment above the second-highest maximum, not at the leader's maximum. One very keen bidder on their own does not push the price anywhere near what they were willing to pay. It takes two people who want the same item to reach a strong final price, which is why the size and mood of your audience matters more in an auction than in any other format.
There is no reserve price
This is the single most important thing to understand before you run your first auction. The starting price is the only floor an item has. There is no separate reserve, no minimum you can set below which the item quietly goes unsold, and no chance to decline the result afterwards. If bidding opens at one euro and exactly one person bids, the item sells for one euro, the order is created, the buyer is charged, and you are expected to ship it.
So treat the starting price as your reserve, because that is what it is. Set it at the lowest amount you would be genuinely content to accept once marketplace fees and the true cost of shipping the item are taken out. A low opening price is a common tactic for generating early bids, and it works well in a busy room with several interested buyers. In a quiet room it is simply a discount you have already agreed to.
If nobody bids at all, the auction ends unsold and the reserved unit returns to your available inventory. That outcome costs you a few minutes of airtime and nothing else, which makes an unsold item far less expensive than a badly underpriced sold one.
Why a first show is usually better in Buy It Now
An auction converts audience size into price. That is its strength once you have an audience, and it is precisely the reason it is a difficult format to start in. A new seller's first shows are watched by a small number of people, and a small audience is the exact condition under which auctions perform worst: a low opening price plus a single interested bidder produces a real, binding sale at very close to that opening price.
A fixed price removes that risk entirely. You do the arithmetic before you go live, with your fee and shipping costs in front of you, and you know what every sale is worth. Nothing that happens during the show can change it. If an item does not sell, it does not sell, and it is still there for the next show at the same price.
Running the show is also considerably simpler. There is no countdown to watch while you are talking, no increments to explain to first-time bidders, no last-second drama to manage on camera, and no unpaid winner to chase afterwards. Your attention stays on describing the item well and answering questions, which is what actually builds the audience an auction will later need.
None of this means auctions are a worse format. It is a question of sequence. Sell at fixed prices while you are building a following, watch how many people are in the room and how often two of them want the same thing, and move to auctions when that starts happening regularly.
When auctions are worth running
Auctions come into their own with items that are genuinely hard to price and genuinely scarce. One-of-a-kind vintage pieces, graded collectibles, rare sizes, and anything where the honest answer to what is this worth is whatever the right buyer will pay on the day, are all better discovered by the room than guessed by you.
They also need competition to work. If you can reliably expect several viewers to want the same item at the same time, an auction will usually beat the fixed price you would have set. If you cannot, you are running a raffle with one entrant.
Even in the right conditions, keep the discipline: open at your floor, keep durations short enough to hold attention, and state the rules out loud before bidding starts so no first-time bidder is surprised by how the item closes.
What each format asks of you after the sale
A Buy It Now item is paid for at the moment of purchase, so you pack against an order that is already settled. The reconciliation after the show is short: sold items match paid orders, and you ship them.
An auction charges the winner's saved payment method automatically once the item closes. Most of the time this is invisible to you. Sometimes it is not: a card can decline or need extra authentication, and the item then sits as an unpaid order. Do not ship it, and list it again in a later show.
In both formats, reconcile what sold against what was actually paid before you pack anything, and upload tracking promptly. The order record inside the marketplace is what protects you and the buyer if anything is later disputed.