What's the difference between online auction and actual auction?

In fact, online auction is not a real auction, it is just a new trading mode that adopts bidding to adapt to the network environment. There are two kinds of e-commerce using bidding on the network: one is that the subject with auction qualification moves the traditional auction business to the network, that is, the auction company conducts traditional auctions on the network alone or in cooperation with other companies. The other is the online auction mentioned in this paper, that is, network service providers use network transmission technology to provide paid or unpaid trading platforms for the owners of goods, services or rights, so that they can independently conduct online trading models based on bidding and bargaining. Trading websites established by auction companies independently or in cooperation with other companies are in full compliance with the auction law. That is, entrusted by the client, the auction target is examined to determine the legal status, rights and obligations of the parties, and finally the auction is conducted in its own name on the website, and the commission is charged. Disputes arising from its behavior and solutions are regulated by the auction law; Internet companies provide trading platforms and procedures in online auctions, build online markets for buyers and sellers, and do not participate in transactions between buyers and sellers. The seller uploads the information of the lot to the online platform, and all transactions are automatically completed by the program of the website. The website has no substantive obligation to review the quality, authenticity and legality of the auction, nor does it review the seller's ability to sell items and the buyer's ability to buy items. Because the online auction adopts the same price competition mechanism as the traditional auction, the characteristics of this price competition mechanism are: open bidding, and the property (right) belongs to the highest bidder. This is consistent with the definition of auction in the Auction Law: auction refers to the way of buying and selling specific goods or property rights to the highest bidder in the form of open bidding. But we can't think that online auction is a traditional auction, because there are essential differences between them: in traditional auction, the relationship between the trustee and the auctioneer is contractual, and the auctioneer, as the trustee, engages in auction activities in his own name rather than in the name of the trustee, and there is no direct relationship between the trustee and the bidder; In auction activities, the auctioneer and the bidder are in a contracting state, and the auctioneer and the bidder form an auction service contract relationship during the contracting process; After the auction is completed, the auctioneer will pay the price of the auction target to the client and hand over the auction target to the buyer as agreed. The auctioneer's behavior of paying the price marks the completion of the entrustment contract, and the auctioneer and the buyer have established a sales contract relationship. In other words, a complete auction contract should be composed of three parts: the entrusted auction contract, the auction service contract and the sales contract. In online auction, the relationship between online trading platform providers and sellers is worth considering. The common view is that the relationship between the platform provider and the seller is an entrustment contract, an intermediary contract or an anti-lease contract. In the online auction, the platform provider provides the online trading platform for the seller, and the seller displays the goods he wants to sell on the trading platform, and the buyer bids or not. The civil legal relationship between platform providers and sellers is based on the paid or unpaid use of trading platforms. In essence, the trading platform is an online mall. Platform providers are only providers of cyberspace, publishing services and trading procedures of online shopping malls, and do not publish commodity information or participate in trading. Platform vendors only provide a service for buyers and sellers to reach a sales contract. It forms a service relationship with the seller based on this service. This kind of civil legal relationship is obviously not a entrustment contract relationship, nor can it be equated with the traditional intermediary contract relationship. Although it is similar to the counter lease contract, the platform provider not only provides the trading platform, but also provides users with other services to promote the transaction, and charges related fees based on the conclusion of the transaction. The service of the trading platform forms a de facto intermediary, which only plays the role of information transmission, and the effect is similar to that of an intermediary. The legal relationship between the provider of online trading platform and the buyer and seller is a kind of service relationship, that is, the service contract relationship generated by providing trading information based on network technology should be adjusted and regulated by contract law. In online auction, buyers and sellers sign sales contracts. The conclusion process of the contract is roughly as follows: 1. In the type of online auction that adopts bidding transaction, the seller's actions such as logging in the goods, publishing information, displaying the goods and announcing the bidding bottom price on the trading platform of the network service provider constitute an invitation to offer, and the website users enter the page to browse the goods, click on the goods and bid, which constitutes an offer. Before the bidding deadline, although the bidding price entered by the bidder can be transmitted to the commodity provider, as long as the bidding deadline has not expired, the commodity provider has the right to continue to display and sell the item, and the commodity provider is in the position of choosing whether to accept the other party's quotation. When the deadline for bidding ends, if the bidder's bid is equal to or higher than the seller's reserve price, the highest bidder has the exclusive right to buy the goods. The end of the bidding deadline can be regarded as the promise of the commodity provider to the highest bidder.