The Words We Use

Lot, tag, hammer, premium, reserve, soft close, maximum bid, invoice, consignor, statement — every word on the site, in one line each.

Menu (three lines): on a phone, the button at the top left that opens the site's links; on a computer they run along the top instead. See Getting around on a phone.
Accessibility report: a note anyone can send from the Accessibility page, at the bottom of every page, when something on the site does not work with what they use, such as a screen reader or a keyboard. See Accessibility.
Embed (embed code): a line of code you paste into your own website so it shows something from another site, live, such as your auctions; you set it up under Settings, Website display. See Show your auctions on your own website Only the websites you list there can show it; anywhere else it is an empty frame.
Test mode: the site is still being tried out before it opens. A red banner says so at the top of every page; no auction is real, nothing is for sale, and no bid or payment counts. See This site is in test mode.
Auction (some houses say sale): one event, a group of lots that open for bidding together and close one after another. Ongoing means taking bids now; upcoming means published but not open yet; past means closed, and stays online with its prices under Past auctions.
Lot: one thing for sale within an auction, or one box of things sold together. The unit you bid on.
Lot number: the public number of a lot, 1, 2, 3 with no gaps, given out when the auction is published.
Suspended / banned: an auction house has stopped you bidding there. Suspended is for now, until they reinstate you; banned is until they lift it. Bids you already placed stand, and other houses are not affected.
Shared address: several accounts seen from the same internet connection. Staff see a flag; it means look, not guilty.
Same phone: two accounts at one house confirmed the same mobile number. Staff see a tag, red when one of the accounts is banned there; it means look, not guilty.
Adult content (a gated photo): a photo an auction house marked adult, or that the automatic check thinks may be. It is blurred until you choose to see it — click the photo, choose show for this auction, or set a standing choice under Privacy and Data. Explicit or illegal images are removed and never shown. See Adult content, blurred photos and reporting.
Data policy: what the platform keeps about you and why; agreed to with the terms when an account is made. Analytics: the one optional choice, off unless ticked; yes lets the platform learn from how you use the site and turns automatic problem reports on.
Date of birth: given when you register, because auctions are for adults — you must be 18 or older. It is private: only you and the platform's own staff ever see it, never an auction house.
Tag number: the number on the sticker the auction house puts on the item while cataloguing. Staff use it; bidders see the lot number.
Catalogue: the list of lots in an auction, and the work of making it.
Category: what kind of thing a lot is (Coins & Currency, Furniture, Tools & Equipment…), chosen from one shared list every house uses, so bidders can browse across the whole marketplace. Staff can request a new one if it is missing (the staff help's Categories article).
Draft: an auction that is not public yet. Published: public, taking bids from its opening time.
Bidding opens: the moment bids are accepted. Closes: lots close in turn, a set number of seconds apart that the house chooses.
Soft close: a bid in the last minutes extends that one lot's closing time, so a last-second bid can always be answered.
Maximum bid: the most you are willing to pay. The site bids for you one step at a time, only as far as needed. Other bidders never see it; the auction house sees it only after the lot closes.
Bid history: the table on every lot listing each bid — when, which paddle number, the price after it, and its result. Never anyone's maximum. See Reading the bid history.
Took the lead / outbid by proxy: the two results a bid can have. Took the lead means it made its bidder the high bidder; outbid by proxy means the leader's standing maximum beat it at once, so the price rose but the leader did not change.
Current bid: what the leading bidder is paying right now, which is usually less than their maximum.
Bid increment: the step a bid must rise by, which grows as the price grows. The whole table (the ladder) is under Bid increments on every open lot.
Starting bid: the least anyone may bid first.
Reserve: the lowest price the seller will accept. Bidders see only whether it has been met, never the number.
Estimate: the house's guess at what a lot will fetch, shown as a range.
Question (on a lot): something you ask the house about a lot from its own page. A person reads it before it goes anywhere; if they answer and publish it, it appears as Asked by paddle #N, never your name. See Asking a question about a lot.
Hammer price: the winning bid, before anything is added.
Buyer's premium: a percentage the house adds to the hammer price. Sales tax may be charged on top.
Invoice: the bill for everything you won in one auction, issued when the auction closes.
Amazon Pay: a way to pay an invoice with the card or bank account kept in your Amazon account, offered by some houses. Same total, same processor; only the button is different.
Preview day: a time a house lets you come and look at an auction's lots in person, listed on the auction and its lots. Not the same as Catalogue visible, the moment the lots first appear online. See Coming to look before you bid.
Pickup and shipping: how you get your items. The auction, or a single lot, says which is allowed; you choose on your invoice.
Your account (the account centre): your own place at account.crossroadsellers.com, reached from your picture: Home, Personal Info, Payments and ID, Notifications, Privacy and Data, Your Auction Houses. Security opens separately on the sign-in site, so passwords live in one place only.
Switch: a setting that saves the moment you flip it and says Saved underneath (texts when outbid, each house's auction news, analytics, adult content, and in the console the card-to-bid rule, automatic approval and the list reminders). No Save button; what you see is what is set.
Trusted contact: the person an owner chooses who can let them back in after speaking to them, with two PINs over the phone or a scanned code and four digits in person. Staff have their owner for this. Only the owner can choose, change (seven days) or remove them.
Recovery lock: after you get back into your account through a recovery, the settings a thief would change first (bank account, contact details, ways to sign in, the team, data downloads, publishing) stay frozen until a set time, usually 7 days; everything else works (Why Is This Locked?).
Picked up: staff pressed Mark Picked Up on the invoice when the goods left the building; the buyer is emailed. Abandoned: the house marked an invoice whose buyer never came, under its terms of sale. Either one, or a tracking number, means the house has handed the goods over.
Consignor: the person or estate whose item the house is selling. Commission: the share the house keeps from the hammer price. Statement: the consignor's account for an auction, and the payout is the money they receive.
Second-chance offer: after an auction, the house may offer a lot to the next bidder if the winner did not pay or the reserve was not met.
Outbid text: a text message when you are outbid, on top of the email and the bell; switch it on under Your phone once your number is confirmed.
Watch: bookmark a lot to find it again and get its closing reminder. Every lot shows how many people are watching it, never who.
Saved search: a search you keep (the words, category and distance) so we email you when a new lot matches it anywhere on the marketplace. Following a house: hearing by email once whenever a house you follow opens a new auction.
Automatic approval: a house rule that approves a registration by itself once the bidder has a confirmed email and a card on file. The house switches it on; staff can still suspend or ban.
Paddle number: your number at one auction house. Bidder ID: your number everywhere on the platform, for life.
Rating: after a purchase, buyers rate the house and the house rates the buyer; both stay hidden until both have rated.
Passkey: a sign-in held by your device: fingerprint, face, PIN or a security key. It signs you in without a password, and only ever answers to this site, so a look-alike site gets nothing. Second factor: a second proof after your password, an authenticator code or a passkey; required for auction house staff. Trusted browser: a browser you told the second-factor page not to ask again on for 30 days; forgotten the moment your factors change. Confirm it is you: the fresh check the site asks for before a few big actions (your profile or phone; for staff, publishing, a payout, a refund, the payout account) if your last one was more than ten minutes ago, trusted browser or not. The full list is under Signing in, passwords and passkeys. Your phones: the phones signed in to the Crossroad Sellers app, listed on the Security tab, each with Sign out for a phone that is lost or sold. Confirmed mobile phone: a number you proved by typing the code we texted to it; every bidder on the platform gives a number at registration and confirms it before their first bid, once texting is live. The app: the Crossroad Sellers iPhone app, the whole bidding experience on a phone with the same login and rules as the website (The Crossroad Sellers app for your phone). TestFlight: Apple's app for trying an app before it is on the App Store; an emailed invitation installs ours through it. Front door: the extra lock on the platform pages only. Cloudflare, which stands in front of the site, checks that a platform staff member is on its list (through Google, or a one-time code by email) before the site's own sign-in runs; nothing on a house's site has it. Owners can read more under Platform staff and platform support in their help.
Terms of sale: the house's rules for buying. Accepted at registration and again, by a tick, before your first bid in each auction; an auction can carry terms of its own, which replace them for that auction.
Ticket: a question or a problem report, and the thread of replies on it. Answer it on the site or by replying to its email; closed tickets are deleted after 90 days.
Sign-in code: a six-digit code emailed to you from Try Another Way on the sign-in page; typed into the six squares it signs you in with no password, lasts ten minutes and works once. Try Another Way: the link under the password box; it opens Choose How to Sign In, the same list of every other way in for everyone. Skip the Password Next Time: the offer to add a passkey shown once right after a sign-in without one; Not Now asks again in 30 days on that browser, Don't Ask Again stops it for good on the account. This wasn't me: the button on every sign-in alert and on every row of Recent Activity in Security; the confirm screen shows what you are reporting (what, where, when) and the three things locking does, and after it it signs everyone out, freezes the account (no sign-in, no bids) for a seven-day lock and opens a case for the platform's team to bring the real owner back. Frozen: an account in that state; every way in says so with a case number. Account hub: your account's own address, account.crossroadsellers.com: home, personal info, payments and ID, notifications, privacy and data, with a sidebar and Back to Crossroad Sellers at the top; Security lives beside sign-in at login.crossroadsellers.com. Account hub: your account's own address, account.crossroadsellers.com: home, personal info, payments and ID, notifications, privacy and data, with a sidebar and Back to Crossroad Sellers at the top; Security lives beside sign-in at login.crossroadsellers.com. Focused card: the one small sign-in card, with the Crossroad Sellers mark, that every sign-in, check and recovery page is; the sign-in address is login.crossroadsellers.com.
Recovery codes: eight single-use codes handed out when you add your first passkey or authenticator, for signing in when the device is lost. New ones can be made from Security after your password and a fresh check; making them burns the old set.
Register to Bid at This House: the button on any open lot at an auction house, for someone who already has a login, to become a bidder there — a short form (agree to the house's terms of sale, an optional note) that creates a pending membership the house approves. Registering itself (a login) happens once, at login.crossroadsellers.com under Create Your Account, and asks for no auction house.
Hand-over note: what a house writes when it passes a bidder's ticket to the platform: what was asked and what the house already tried. Required, read by platform staff, never shown to the bidder.
What are you here to do?: the question after sign-in for an account that holds more than one role, one tile per role by its name: Bidder; Owner, Administrator or Staff; Platform staff or Platform support. Tick Don't ask again and sign-ins land there; switch any time from the role line under your name behind your picture. A plain bidder never sees it, and nor does staff who never registered to bid.
Platform staff: the people who run Crossroad Sellers itself, above every auction house. Platform support: the people who answer the platform's tickets and nothing more. Nobody at an auction house is either.