Auto-Bid feature for the Auction House

The Auction House is the central system for players to exchange items, but for one reason or another many items are no longer being sold. Low to mid level armor and weapon have especially taken a hit in availability. Granted, the rapid level progression in Abyssea is to blame partly. If you only need it for 2-3 hours before you reach a point you'd upgrade your equipment anyway, why bother buying it? More so when you really wont be using it in the first place.

It has been stated that if there is a demand for items there will be someone ready to supply it. However, how do players show there is a demand for an item? Currently the only real method is to use /shout in populated areas, but this way is relatively ineffective. The player is required to stay in the zone, spamming the message over and over giving no ability to do anything else. People who are able to provide the item(s) in question may not be online or in the zone during the duration of the shout or may have the /shout channel turned off.
We could say to look at recent transactions on the AH, but that only tells us when things were bought, not how badly they are needed. Just because the last 2 sales were a week apart does not necessarily mean the item is not in demand. It could mean that there was none available between the week time period.

So how can players show there is something they want something when it's not on the AH? I think having another selection aside from Bid available (I'm just calling it Auto-Bid) may at least help.

Let's say I was looking for a Haubergeon+1 for my WAR I was leveling and none were available on the AH. Current server price is about 200k. Generally I could either /shout in hopes someone in the area has one they no longer want or hope that I happen to be by the AH when someone finally sells one before someone else buys it. However, being able to use Auto-Bid I can put a certain amount of gil that does not exceed my gil total (let's say 200k) on the AH specifically for a Haubergeon. At this point the 200k is no longer in my possession and is on the AH to prevent any problems with the transfer of gil. My Bid would leave a [1] next to the Haubergeon on the list in a different color to show that I am looking to buy it. My Auto-Bid does not actually show how much I am willing to spend similar to how the AH doesn't show how much someone is selling for. If another player sells a Haubergeon for less than my Bid (say selling for 190k) the system will act as if I was immediately Bidding on the Haubergeon and then send my 200k to the player's Delivery Box and the Haubergeon to mine.

If the other player were to try to sell a Haubergeon for 205k, the item would remain on the AH along with my pending bid since my Bid was too low to buy the item in question. If another player puts a Haubergeon on the AH for 200k the system would try to Bid again and if successful send the gil to that player and the item to me.

If, for some reason, I feel impatient and go back to the AH and see that a Haubergeon is for sale and my Bid is still there, I would know that the item is being sold for more than I was willing to spend. But let's say I really want that item and decide to Bid now that one is up for 210k. If successful my Auto-Bid would be canceled and the gil would be sent to the player and the item would drop into my inventory like normal. If unsuccessful my Auto-Bid would remain until my Bidding is successful, someone sells the item for less than my Auto-Bid, or 9 game weeks pass similar to items sales. If after 9 weeks my Bid isn't successful the gil is sent back to my Delivery Box.

As one selling, having this system in place would allow me to see if items are in demand in case I craft or have old items cluttering up my storage. If I see that there's several people wanting Cotton Robes I would know there's people wanting to buy and could provide them. Or if after killing 300 Antlions for a magian trial I could see people want the Antlion Jaws I've collected, I could sell them on the AH rather than sell to the NPCs.

Ideally I would like the Auto-Bids to take the last 3 spaces on our sales list since it is unlikely the number of available space to sell things will exceed 7. But if we are stuck with 7 being the magic number, I would prefer to being able to choose 7 items to sell or 7 Auto-Bids or any combination of the two (i.e. if I'm selling 7 items I can't Auto-Bid until I take at least 1 item down and I can't sell if I have 7 Auto-Bids without canceling a bid,) rather than having it split to only say 5 items I could sell and 2 spots for Auto-Bids ever as a permanent split.

Sorry for the long post, I was trying to make my idea clear. I would hope this would allow the exchange of items easier. After all, someone may supply if there's a demand, but we can't supply if we don't know the demand is there.