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What does P.I.N.S. stand for?

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You're right Erica - I've seen the P.I.N.S. listed on Pinpics & they were/are part of the disneyauction.com set-up. Each pin is a Limited Edition.

In September 2003, disneyauction.com launched the Purchase-It-Now store on DisneyAuctions.com (believe it or not!), this was a fixed-price environment that offered limited-edition sizes of 250 ($14), 500 ($12) and 1000 ($10). On Mondays and Thursdays they rolled out their new releases in the P.I.N.S. (Purchase it Now Store) which was a fixed-price environment. Each Monday and Thursday they typically offered three limited-edition pins of 1000 ($10), two limited-edition pins of 500 ($12) and one limited-edition of 250 ($14). The limited-editions of 100 were released every Thursday afternoon around 3 or 4 PM, Pacific Standard Time. These were available in an auction environment and they all start at $18, but because it was an auction the price did go up. Occasionally they offered prototypes and pin artworks, these were typically limited to only one or two of a kind. Other products included limited-edition pin lanyards and pin bags.

This is all now rolled into disneyshopping.com!
 
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The Disney Auctions LE 100 pins were sold a bit differently than the DisneyStore.com LE 100 pins are sold. First, whereas the DisneyStore LE 100 pin sets ALWAYS are sold in sets of 6 pins, that wasn't true for the Disney Auctions LE 100 pin sets. Of the 100 of each of the 6 pins that comprise any given LE 100 Disney Auctions set, only 75 were sold as a set of 6 pins. The other 25 of each of the 6 pins were auctioned off individually. Disney Auctions also created LE 100 Jumbo pins that they auctioned off that weren't part of any of the sets - they just were sold by themselves as the individual pins that they were. But this brings me to the next question of how this whole thing worked ... .

Unlike DisneyStore.com, which is very much like the Disney Store P.I.N.S. and works with a fixed price (and whoever has the fastest computer gets the pins), Disney Auctions literally was an auction for pins - a Dutch auction, to be specific. The Disney Auctions LE 100 6 pin sets (75 available) had a starting asking price of $108.00, the individual pins from the 6 pin sets (25 pins available of each design) had a starting asking price of $18.00, and any individual LE 100 pins not part of any sets (100 available) also had a starting asking price of $18.00. When you placed your bid, the idea was to bid the maximum amount you were willing to pay and indicate the quantity of pins (for the auction you were bidding on) that you would like to win. Of course you could rebid if you were outbid before the auction ended, but I think you only could rebid so many times. With the quantity of pins available, there were multiple winners. With a Dutch auction, the highest winning bidders pay the lowest winning bid.

For example, let's say that 5 people are bidding on a Disney Auctions LE 100 pin set. Bob bids $550, Anna bids $375, Jacob bids $220, Rachel bids $125, and Mary bid $120. The lowest winning bid is $125, so that is what everyone would pay, except for Mary, who would be out of luck for this particular LE 100 set.

Does that make sense?
 
dancecats said:
Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

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Yes, it does. Sometimes I wish Disney Auctions would come back. I can't tell you how many times I had to buy the set to get one pin. But if someone doesn't understand Dutch auctions, you could wind up paying a bundle for something. I had that happen at an online antique auction. You can withdraw your bid only so many times and in that case I withdrew. But it's something to think about and it involves strategy instead of speed.
 
I'm not really sure why Disney Auctions ended, but I can take a guess. I believe they were run in combination with eBay and, well, Disney probably figured they'd rather manage their own site (hence the creation of DisneyShopping.com) and eBay probably was getting a bit sick of Disney 'losing' pins once they were sold and having to cancel completed auctions ... then sometimes relisting the pins once they were 'found' again. What I have no clue about is if Disney cancelled on eBay, eBay cancelled on Disney, or it was a mutual decision to end Disney Auctions ... but either way, it really was too bad that they ended - those were some of the best pins ever designed.
 
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