Problems in status quo:
In most old or one-sided universes, items in auctioneer are monopolized by a single or a very few top ranking players, usually with extremely low prices. This often happens because the top players bully and threaten low ranking players who bid against them. This way, the top ranking bidders can scare away their competitors and easily dominate the auctioneer. This is definitely not what an auctioneer should look like. Top players should win the bid through resource advantage but not military advantage.
Solution:
The root cause of what is happening in the auctioneer is the fact that bidders' names are shown. If one can bid without showing his/her nickname on the auctioneer, bullying and threatening won't happen. I recommend the game development team to consider anonymizing bidders.
Of course, some top players may want to show their nickname in bids, probably to show their determination of winning the bid or simply to show off. In this case, the development team may consider creating a checkbox in options so that players can choose to show or hide their nickname in bids.