How Bid Budi works, and who is responsible for what
Bid Budi is the auction house. The storage facility is the seller. Almost every question here turns on that one line: we run the sale and keep the record of it, and the facility is the party that holds the goods, decides to sell them and answers for the right to.
What it costs to join, what has to be on record before a first bid, and how the bidding itself behaves.
What does it cost to register?
Nothing. Registering, browsing, watching units and bidding are free to a buyer.
Do you take my card details when I register?
No. Nothing on this site asks for a card until you have won something. When you win, you are sent to PayFast to pay; Bid Budi never sees or stores your card details, and placing a bid never puts a hold on anything.
Can I bid as soon as I have registered?
Not quite. The auction regulations require a bidders’ record before a first bid — your full name, identity number, age, address and contact details — and Bid Budi checks it once. A person reads it, so there is no instant answer and we do not publish a turnaround time we have not agreed to. Until it comes back you can browse, watch units, and pay for and collect anything you have already won; you cannot place a bid.
Why do you need my ID number and address?
Because the auction regulations require a bidders’ record for every auction, and because it may be inspected on request. It records each bidder’s name, identity number, address and contact details, and the IP address every bid was placed from. Someone bidding on behalf of another person must lodge written authorisation before bidding.
I buy units to resell. Does that change anything?
Yes. Buying goods to resell makes you a dealer under the Second-Hand Goods Act 6 of 2009, which carries its own SAPS registration and record-keeping duties. There is a box on the registration form to tell us, and it is yours to keep accurate.
How does the bidding work?
Every auction is a timed online auction of one unit’s entire contents, sold as a single lot. It opens at a published opening bid and rises in increments — R100 by default — until the published closing time. An auction runs for 1 days by default; the closing time is on the listing and on the countdown.
What is a maximum bid?
The amount you are willing to go to, left with the platform. Bids are then placed on your behalf in increments, and only as far as they need to go to keep you in front — so setting a high maximum does not mean paying it. Your maximum is not disclosed to anybody: not to other bidders, not to the facility, and not on any screen we can read. Where two bidders set the same maximum, the earlier one prevails.
Can somebody win by bidding in the last second?
No. A bid placed inside the last 1 minutes pushes the closing time out by 2 minutes, and it keeps doing so, so no bid wins purely by arriving last. The auction closes when the bidding actually stops.
How a soft close works
Is there a reserve price?
There is no reserve on these auctions — there is no reserve field in this platform at all. What the auction regulations restrict is the claim rather than the model: describing a sale as being without reserve needs written confirmation from the lien holder. So clause 4.2 of each auction’s Rules of Auction states the position only where that confirmation is on record, and where it is not, it says so and claims nothing either way.
Can I take a bid back?
A bid is an offer, and it may be withdrawn up to 0 minutes before the closing time. After that it stands until the sale is completed. Every withdrawal is recorded on the auction’s public bid history — it is not erased.
Will a facility email me because I bid on its auction?
Not unless you ask. Beside the bid button there is a box, unticked, that says “email me when this facility lists new auctions”; there is also a Follow facility button on every auction. Only if you tick or press one of them are you told about that facility’s new auctions.
The facility sees your screen name and how many of its auctions you have bid on. It never sees your email address: Bid Budi sends the announcement for it. Every announcement has a link that stops them, and your account page lists the facilities you follow.
The figures here are the platform’s current defaults. Each auction is sold on the rule set snapshotted onto it when it was released, published as that auction’s own Rules of Auction — so where a number here and a number on a listing differ, the listing is the one that governs your sale.