To bid on items on Tradewinds Online Cane Auction, you must first register by filling out a Customer Registration Form.  This form asks you for your name, mailing address, phone number and your email address as well as a "Username" that will act as your name on this system.  All of your information is confidential.  Your email and mailing addresses will never be used for unsolicited mailings, or given or sold to anyone.  Your information is used only to make contact when you are the high bidder on an item.

When you register, your information is stored in your account on our server.  You then will be sent an automatic email with a password.  The password is a random sequence of 8 letters or numbers.  You can use this password if you want to, or you can change this password to something more easily remembered by using the  Change Customer Information Form.  You are now registered!  Write down your username and your password as they are required to bid, and perform many other functions on the site.  Note: Your email address must be valid to receive your password, and no passwords will be sent to email addresses from free email services from like yahoo.com or hotmail.com etc.

By registering and using this website, you are agreeing with our Terms and Conditions.

II.  PLACING A BID

Placing a bid on an item is fast and easy.  However, before you bid on an item, you should email Tradewinds with any questions concerning the item.

Once you have found an item that you wish to bid on, scroll to the bottom of that item's bidding page which contains all of the information about the sale (the item's description, the item's image, and the bidding history of the item).  At the bottom of the bidding page you will find a small form to place your bid in US dollars.  This form tells you the current high bid, the minimum bid increment, and the minimum bid that can be made.  Simply enter your bid, your username and password and hit "Preview Bid".  This action takes you to a second page where you review your bid for accuracy. You cannot retract your bid, so double check it for accuracy!  After checking your bid for accuracy, you must check the boxes indicating that you have read and agree with our Terms and Conditions for use of this service and that you intend to purchase the item for the amount of your bid should your bid be the high bid. Bidding is a binding legal contract in many states.  Do not bid unless you intend to purchase the item. Once you have reviewed your bid, and checked the boxes on the form, hit "Place Bid" to make your bid final.  You will be sent to a screen that confirms your bid was placed.  You may wish to print this screen for your records.

Note:  A bid may only be retracted in the case of a grievous and obvious error.  For example, if you mistyped $9000.00 instead of $90.00.  If this occurs, immediately contact Tradewinds (auctions@tradewindsantiques.com) by email and describe the error.  Errors such as bidding on the wrong item, changing your mind, or accidentally bidding few dollars more than you desired are not grounds for bid retraction.  Remember, bidding is the Buyer's responsibility and great care should be given to double check amounts and item numbers prior to finalizing the bid.

Our auction software sets bid increments automatically as an auction progresses. The increments are based on the bid amount and are as follows:

$25 for bids from $0 to $500

$50 for bids from $500 to $1000

$100 for bids from $1000 to $3000

$250 for bids from $3000 to $5000

$500 for bids from $5000 to $10,000

$1000 for bids from $10,000 to $30,000

$2500 for bids from $30,000 to $50,000

$5000 for bids from $50,000 to $100,000

$10,000 for bids over $100,000

III.  MAXBID

Our system provides a way of bidding on items even when not at your computer.  This feature is called MaxBid and is very simple to use.  Simply bid the MAXIMUM AMOUNT you are willing to pay for the item you are bidding on.  This amount will be saved on our server and Tradewinds will automatically bid for you up to that amount.

Here is an example of how MaxBid works:

An item is being auctioned with a current high bid of $100.00 and a bid increment of $25.00.  After carefully looking over the item, you decide that you wish to bid, and that you are willing to pay up to $500.00 for the item.  You enter your MaxBid of $500.00 and place your bid.  The software remembers your MaxBid and places your current bid which is $125.00.  Soon after your bid of $125.00, another user places a bid of $150.00.  The program recognizes that person's bid, then automatically places another bid for you raising the current price to $175.00 (you are still the high bidder).

This process continues until the auction ends or your spending limit is reached by another user bidding more than your MaxBid.  Users familiar with Tradewind's live auctions will recognize this feature as being a computer-based version of our Absentee Bidding Procedure.

IV. EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS

Periodically, you may receive an email from Tradewinds regarding your status in a current auction.  One such email is an "Outbid Notice" that is sent to you immediately after another user has bid higher than your last bid.  This notice informs you that you are no longer the high bidder so that you can return to the item and place a higher bid if you wish.  The second is a "Winning Bid" notice that is sent to you if you have won an auction.

V. FAIR WARNING & AUCTION CLOSINGS

Throughout the sale of an item, the "Time Left" in an auction is displayed as the time remaining until the auction closes (is over).  On most online auction sites, the closing time is a final and fixed time.  This means that if a person can place a final bid with 1 second left in the auction, that person will win the auction even though there may have been another user willing to pay more but could not place their last second bid because of a slow connection to the internet, internet traffic, or many other reasons out of the user's control.  There are even software routines that allow users to send last second bids automatically.  We feel that this is not a fair situation and does not give all users an even chance.  For this reason, we have have come up with our solution called Fair Warning.

On Tradewinds Online Cane Auction, an auction ends at the predicted time (the Time Left) UNLESS someone bids within the last 2 minutes of the auction.  If a person bids with less than two minutes left, the auction will continue for 2 minutes from the time of the last bid, this extension period is called Fair Warning.  You will know that the auction is in a fair warning period by the words FAIR WARNING blinking on your screen under the Time Left.

Here is an example:  If a user bids with 1 minute left in the auction, the two minute Fair Warning timer is activated.  The auction will now close in 2 minutes unless another bid is received.  If another bid is placed within this time extension, the 2 minute timer is restarted.  This will continue until two minutes pass without any bidding.  This levels the playing field for all users and it is more like a live auction where the auctioneer says "going once...going twice...fair warning...sold!".

At the close of an auction, a "Winning Bid" notice is sent by email to the high bidder to inform that person that he/she won the auction, and gives instructions on how to contact Tradewinds to arrange payment and shipping.