Leroy

For the auction house Bukowskis we've built an online platform for live auctions. Bukowskis' own auction system integrates with Leroy, publishing information about upcoming auctions and the lots they contain. Bidders can connect with a web client, and join the auction. The current lot is visible, the bidder gets messages about all bids and can enter the next bid according to a defined bid ladder. In the auction hall, the auctioneer announces the leading bid, from the hall or from the online bidding. The bids in the hall are sent to Leroy, which broadcasts them to the online bidders. Online bids are announced to the hall, and an online bidder gets information about the leading bid, and whether it's his or hers.

Technology

We built Leroy using Tornado, a web server written in Python which lends itself well to real-time communication. Messages are stored with Memcache and persisted using MemcacheDB. On the client side, we used jQuery and JavaScript to build the client. Online bidders don't need any special plugins to enter the auction - a web browser is sufficient.

Naming

The name "Leroy" comes from Leroy Van Dyke, "The world's greatest auctioneer".