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An auction is the process of buying and selling goods by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the winning bidder. In economic theory, an auction is a method for determining the value of a commodity that has an undetermined or variable price. The word "auction" is derived from the Latin augēre, which means "to increase" or "augment". For most of history, auctions have been a relatively uncommon way to negotiate the exchange of goods and commodities. In practice, both haggling and sale by set-price have been significantly more common. Indeed, prior to the seventeenth century the few auctions that were held were sporadic and infrequent. ~Wikipedia |