The Chatham Merchants Association is auctioning each of the Sharks in the Park with an online auction. The proceeds of the Sharks in the Park auction will benefit the Chatham Merchants Association’s investment in making Chatham a wonderful and fun place in which to live, do business, stay and visit, shop, and enjoy all the attractions of this great town.
You can bid on any number of sharks using the online bidding website, called Bidding for Good. You can view the Shark auction items by following the links to individual Sharks, or to the Homepage of the Sharks in the Park auction.
You will need to register on the Bidding for Good website in order to bid.
50% of the proceeds of each shark sale will go to the artist. The rest of the proceeds will be used by the Chatham Merchants Association in promoting Chatham.
Each shark is approximately 5 feet by 2 feet, and weatherproof, suitable for hanging on a wall or stand, for indoor or outdoor installation.
In order to bid in the online auction for any of the sharks or other items, you must first register at the website Bidding for Good. As part of registering, you must put a credit card on file in order to bid, in case you are the winning bidder on an item at the end of the auction.
There are two types of bids you can make - Proxy Bids, and Straight Bids. See more detail in later questions.
You need to register only once with Bidding for Good, in order to participate in any of the auctions they host. If you were registered last year, the same ID and password should still be good. If you have forgotten your password, please use the “Forgot Your Password?” link to reset your password. Please check your account details and be sure the credit card on file is still valid and the one you want to use for bidding.
Yes, but shipping is an exceptional situation, and there would be extra charges for packaging and shipping, potentially significant. We do not have shipping rates calculated in advance. If you would be interested in having a shark shipped if you win an auction, please contact the Chatham Merchants Association to discuss.
The 2018 Sharks in the Park Auction will end at noon on Friday, August 17, 2018. Bidding will end at that time.
Yes. All bidding must be done using the Bidding for Good website. There is no offline bidding.
When you make a bid for a shark on the Bidding for Good website, you will see there is choice between two types of bid to make. One is called a “Straight Bid”. A Straight Bid is a single bid for a fixed amount. It can be an amount much higher than the current high bid on a shark.
Why would I do that? Because this is an auction for a good cause, you may wish to bid a certain amount, no matter how little other people have bid so far. The goal with a straight bid is not to buy a shark at the lowest possible price, but rather to contribute to the cause and buy a shark.
If you wish to bid a fixed higher amount, and then also have the system keep bidding on your behalf up to a maximum amount you are willing to spend (proxy bidding), you should make two bids for a shark on the Bidding for Good website. Make a Straight Bid for a fixed amount you want to bid now. Then make a Proxy Bid for the maximum amount you are willing to spend, if other people continue to bid up the item.
When you make a bid for a shark on the Bidding for Good website, you will see there is choice between two types of bid to make. One is called proxy bidding. You specify the maximum amount you are willing to bid, but that amount is NOT immediately entered as a bid.
Bidding for Good will bid on your behalf during the online auction. They will make a bid that is $50 higher than anyone else has bid, up to the amount you have stated as your maximum bid. If no one else bids an amount that’s close to your maximum amount, you will not pay your maximum amount. You will win the auction on a bid that’s only $50 higher than anyone else was willing to bid.
For anyone familiar with bidding on eBay or many other auction websites, the concept of proxy bidding is the same. One difference with eBay is that when making a proxy bid for a shark, you cannot force the bid higher than $50 more than someone else is willing to bid. See the previous question for more explanation.
No. The Chatham Merchants Association is not a charitible organization, therefore money spent on a shark is not a tax-deductible donation.