Sometimes the fault lies with the organizers. I FINALLY convinced our 4-H silent auction people to raise the minimum bids, for one. And the bidding increments had to be at larger. But I also convinced donors to put a decent value on their items--better to pitch it higher than lower. A group of gals make a quilt each year for the auction. They are slightly smaller than a twin, and the first year, they valued it as $50 piece. So what happened? The bids were so low, one of the gals in the group bid on her own product because she was heart-broken that the bidding was low. When they brought another quilt the next year, I insisted they put a value of $100 on it. What did they get? an over-bid! go figure.