Bid Buddy is a PWA built for auction floor buyers at NPA San Diego. It replaces the spreadsheet-and-gut-feel workflow with real-time AI-powered research, multi-source comps, and team sync — all from your phone while you're standing on the floor.

Import the catalog before the sale. Research items with AI estimates and live comps from eBay, CycleTrader, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace. Set max bids. Share findings with your buying team in real-time. Look up any item by number during the live auction. Know your number before the auctioneer asks.

NPA auctions move fast. Hundreds of motorcycles, ATVs, side-by-sides, RVs, and marine units sell in a single day. Buyers currently prep with spreadsheets, browser tabs, and guesswork. On the floor, there's no time to research — you either know your number or you overpay.

Teams of 2-3 buyers split the floor but have no shared view of what's been triaged, what's worth bidding on, or what the max should be. Information is siloed in individual phones and notebooks.

Catalog Import

Pull inventory directly from the NPA API, upload CSV exports, or parse PDF catalogs. Auto-detects motorcycle vs RV/marine formats. Items persist across imports — your status, notes, and buddy tags are never overwritten.

AI Estimates

Gemini-powered pricing with heuristic fallback. Base prices for 50+ make/model combos with depreciation and mileage adjustments. Model-specific caps prevent inflated estimates (e.g., Ryker 600 capped at $4,200).

Multi-Source Comps

Aggregates sold listings from eBay, CycleTrader, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace. Variant filtering prevents a Ryker 900 comp from inflating a Ryker 600 estimate. Results cached for 30 minutes.

Suggested Max Bid

Calculated at 75% of AI mid estimate with model-specific hard caps. One tap to lock it in.

Create a room with a 6-digit code. Your buying partners join from their phones. Every status change, max bid, note, and comp result syncs in real-time via Supabase.

Before calling the Apify comps API ($0.03/search), Bid Buddy checks if a teammate already fetched comps for the same query — shared comps cut costs and duplicate work. Edits made without cell signal queue locally and flush on reconnect.

A floating sync indicator in the header shows connection status at a glance. Presence tracking shows who's in the room. Activity feed logs every action.

The Floor Screen is the money screen. Type an item number or buddy tag and instantly see: AI estimate, comps summary, max bid, NPA fees, and profit projection. No scrolling, no tabs, no delay.

Camera OCR via Groq Vision API — point your phone at an auction tag and Bid Buddy reads the item number for you. Hands-free lookup while units roll through.

The Buy Fee Calculator shows exact NPA fees ($105–$5,550) based on bid tier. Know your all-in cost before you raise your hand.

All inventory lives in IndexedDB on your device. The app works without internet — critical for auction venues with spotty cell coverage. Sync happens opportunistically when signal is available.

PWA shell with service worker caching means the app loads instantly from the home screen. No app store. No install friction. Share a link, add to home screen, go.

Bid Buddy handles the full NPA San Diego catalog:

• Motorcycles — sport, cruiser, touring, dual-sport, dirt
• ATV / SxS — utility, sport, and side-by-sides (Can-Am, Polaris, etc.)
• RV / Marine — trailers, boats, jet skis, marine engines
• Golf — golf carts and low-speed vehicles

Each category has tuned AI pricing models and appropriate comp sources. Variant filtering is category-aware — engine displacement matters for motos, length matters for boats.

Every item starts as Unreviewed. Swipe through the shortlist to mark items as Interested, Maybe, or Pass. Batch prefetch comps for your entire interested list in one tap.

Each item shows a risk score based on available data — items with known issues, high mileage, or thin comps data get flagged. The goal: walk into the auction knowing exactly which items to fight for and which to let go.

Buddy Tags — each item gets a unique 5-character alphanumeric tag (no ambiguous I/O/0/1 characters). Write the tag on the physical unit during preview. On auction day, type the tag to pull up full research instantly.

Bid Buddy starts at NPA San Diego. One auction, one buying team, one market. Prove the workflow, prove the ROI. A buyer who avoids one bad purchase or finds one undervalued unit pays for the tool immediately.

Expansion path: other NPA locations, Copart, IAAI, Manheim — any auction where prep time is limited and information asymmetry is the edge. The AI pricing models and comp aggregation are category-agnostic. The floor mode works anywhere.

Long-term: Bid Buddy becomes the operating system for auction floor buyers. Import any catalog, research any unit, sync with any team, bid with confidence.