Why Auctions Beat Fixed Prices on DoneDeal

If you've ever tried selling a car on DoneDeal, you know the ritual. You post your listing on a Sunday evening. By Monday morning you have 40 messages — half saying "is it still available?", a quarter offering €2,000 below your asking price, and the rest asking questions that are answered in the listing. By Wednesday, you've responded to everyone. By Friday, you've had two no-shows. Three weeks later, the car is still sitting in your driveway.

This is the fixed-price problem. And it's not unique to DoneDeal — Adverts.ie, Facebook Marketplace, and every other platform that relies on fixed asking prices has the same fundamental flaw: there is no mechanism to find what something is actually worth.

The Psychology of "Is It Still Available?"

When a buyer sees a fixed price, their first instinct isn't to pay it — it's to wonder if they can do better. The asking price becomes a ceiling to negotiate down from, not a fair market price. Sellers overcompensate by inflating prices to leave "negotiating room," which makes listings look expensive, which reduces enquiries. It's a broken loop.

DoneDeal listings for the same car — same year, same mileage, same trim — routinely show asking prices with a €3,000–€5,000 spread. Nobody knows what anything is actually worth. Buyers lowball. Sellers hold firm. Deals die.

What a Timed Auction Actually Does

An auction inverts the psychology entirely. Instead of one seller trying to read one buyer's mind, you have multiple buyers competing against each other in real time. The price isn't set by the seller's wishful thinking — it's discovered by the market.

This creates three outcomes that fixed-price listings can't replicate:

• True market price discovery. Whatever the car is worth to the most motivated buyer, that's what it sells for. No more guessing.
• Urgency that closes deals. A countdown timer changes buyer behaviour. People who've been procrastinating on DoneDeal for weeks will bid on an auction that closes in 24 hours.
• Reserve price protection. Sellers aren't exposed — if bidding doesn't reach your reserve, the item doesn't sell. You've lost nothing.

The DoneDeal Time Tax

Here's what DoneDeal doesn't show you: the hidden cost of your time. The average Irish car seller spends 12–18 hours across the selling process — writing the listing, responding to enquiries, arranging viewings, chasing no-shows, re-listing after deals fall through.

A seven-day auction eliminates most of this. You list once. Interested buyers bid. When the auction closes, you have one serious buyer — someone who has already committed to a price and competed for it. That person shows up.

For Property: The Transparency Problem

In Irish property, auctions already exist — but they're opaque, intimidating, and only used for distressed or unusual assets. The traditional process is worse: you make an offer, the agent tells you there's "another interested party," you bid blindly against a ghost, and eventually you either overpay or walk away frustrated.

Online property auctions fix this with transparent bidding. Every bid is visible. Every bidder knows exactly where they stand. There are no mystery counter-offers from "another party." The price you pay is the price you competed for fairly.

Why Now?

Ireland's car and property markets are in a peculiar place. Used car supply is constrained post-pandemic. Property inventory in major cities remains historically low. In both markets, demand significantly outstrips supply — which is precisely the condition where auctions outperform fixed pricing most dramatically.

When more buyers want something than there are units available, a fixed price artificially caps what sellers receive. An auction captures that demand and converts it into price.

What BidBuy.ie Is Building

BidBuy.ie is Ireland's first dedicated online auction platform for cars and property. Every listing starts at €1. Sellers set a reserve price — which is never revealed to bidders — and the market does the rest. Full vehicle history checks, NCT status, and property BER ratings are included with every listing.

The first 50 sellers pay zero fees. If you have a car or property you've been thinking about selling, there has never been a better time to test what the market will actually pay.