The specialist musical instruments and memorabilia sale, held by Christina’s Auction Den in Connecticut on January 21, brought 56 Internet bids – 33 of them successful – from 257 EBay subscribers. All had registered to bid after seeing the notice of the auction, posted only 48 hours before it was due to start. Between them they secured 16 per cent of the lots (eight per cent by value) on offer, with prices ranging from just a few dollars to about $600.
ICollector were delighted with the result, especially in light of the lack of promotion for the sale, and argued that it showed crucial differences in their deal with EBay from the unsuccessful arrangement abandoned by TIAS.
ICollector auction specialist Sara Covelli agreed with TIAS president Philip Davies that there was a risk with dealers posting lots online for delayed bid auctions as they were likely to have unrealistic expectations of what their items might make. But she said that the ICollector deal involved traditional respected auction houses setting realistic auction estimates for live bidding sales, so they should not face the same problem.
She was confident that the project had a good chance of long-term success because unlike delayed bid auctions, which lacked excitement and the feel of being involved in a live auction, live bidding is “just like telephone bidding” and was expected to become an essential tool for bidders unable to attend live auctions because they lived far away from the auction house. In addition, she argued, the live online bidding process would allow auction houses to take even low-value bids remotely – something many were reluctant to do by phone because of the personnel and costs involved.
Christina Vitagliano, of Christina’s Den, was fulsome in her praise of the new arrangement, saying: “My biggest concern was that the Internet portion would cause a delay, thus dragging the fast pace of our live auctions down, but the online system ran in real-time, allowing the online bidders to experience the excitement of the house with no compromise to the live portion.”
She plans to use the service for her next musical instruments sale on April 29 and says it is helping to expand her customer base.
Online bidders snap up 16 per cent of lots in ICollector’s trial auction
WITH no pre-sale marketing other than a two-day notice on their own Website, ICollector’s first online sale with EBay saw the service get off to a good start.
