We held our 2 day Civil War auction last weekend, hosting online bidding through both Proxibid & LiveAuctioneers. It was interesting. This time, as opposed to the previous trail run of LiveAuctioneers, there was a longer period of time in which the sale was made available to the public on LiveAuctioneers. As a result, at the time of the auction, we had nearly the same number of registered bidders on both platforms, and I've got a comparison of how the sales broke down between the two platforms, which went head to head in a pretty fair test imho.
Platform ][ Total # of Lots ][ Lots Sold ][ Total Sales ][ Avg $ Per Lot ][ Total % Lots Sold ]
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Proxibid ][ 557 ][ 155 ][ $14,725.00 ][ $95.00 ][ 27.82% ]
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LiveAuctioneers ][ 557 ][ 128 ][ $12,495.00 ][ $97.61 ][ 22.98% ]
*Sorry for the terrible chart, I'll probably edit this later & put a graphic in its place or something
So, there were more lots sold on Proxibid, but for a slightly lower average price. All in all, both platforms competed pretty evenly. Aha, but how many people registered on each?
Proxibid - 191
LiveAuctioneers - 249
...hmmm...what can we infer from this data. More people registered & probably viewed the auction on LiveAuctioneers (which supports the idea of that platforms primary strength being its marketing division), but there was a MUCH more substantial followthrough on the participants from Proxibid. With 58 fewer bidders, Proxibid managed to sell 27 more lots, albeit for a slightly lower average price.
This data so far is supporting my thoughts on the two platforms fairly well. Basically, in my opinion, a large portion of the value added to any particular auction by LiveAuctioneers, is their marketing. They appear to do a bang up job of driving viewers to a sale posted on their site, attracting attention & making people want to register. However, Proxibid seems to be getting more targeted & focused buyers funneled into the auction - less people who are more likely to bid & win lots.
With that in mind, its time to go further into detail about my likes & dislikes of the LiveAuctioneers application & service.
1. The Auctioneer application
There are a lot of things I have to say about this. I'm going to start with a few big ones. On LiveAuctioneers, the only way to know which bidder bought any particular item (as an auctioneer) is to visit their website, log in as an auctioneer, and look at an End of Auction report. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Primarily, because of the possibility of disputes during a live auction. When an auctioneer says "sold" it is the completion of a verbal contract, which is legally binding. Typically, in an auction, when a particular item is sold, the auctioneer immediately follows up with the bidders paddle number or bidder number, confirming that the item was purchased by that bidder. This is rather obvious when in a public setting during a live auction, and prevents misunderstandings & disputes by allowing them to be resolved at the point at which they occur. With LiveAuctioneers, it is not possible for the person clerking the live sale on the computer to report back to the auctioneer the bidder's number who purchased the item at the time the item was sold. There is a computer record of the items sale, but speaking from personal experience, I always prefer to have that information publicly stated during the time the sale price is fixed at the fall of the hammer. This way it is not only shared to the public attending the sale in person, but it is also picked up by any recording methods (we tend to audiotape, videotape, or both all auctions we hold). Additionally, this leads to transparency for the general public, further assuring those who attend in person that the bids being relayed to the auctioneer from the online clerk are real & legitimate, and that the sale is not being rigged & there are no games being played with the money or the merchandise. The lack of this information being provided through the auctioneer application is a MAJOR failing of the LiveAuctioneers software in my humble opinion.
There are many other less serious issues with the application. I can state for a fact that the application does work, but there is room for improvement - many small details, which if implemented, will improve the efficiency of the software, making the job of running the application easier for the clerk, and increasing its efficacy at transmitting the relevant data of the active bid, the asking price, & the sale of items back & forth from the auctioneer to the online participants & vice versa. For one thing, as a direct improvement, there seem to be some issues with certain bid increments. For example - if the current bid is $25, and the bid increment is set to $10, the next asking price should be $35. In LiveAuctioneers, using that exact scenario results in an asking price of $30 - apparently the LiveAuctioneers app does not like numbers that end in $5. This can be problematic when trying to maintain speed & accuracy during a live auction. During the sale last weekend, at one point we were selling nearly 90 lots an hour. Trying to keep up with the shifting bid increments is hard enough when software does exactly what you expect it to, but when you input $10 increments, and suddenly the software is asking for $5 increments, you can quickly lose pace & fall behind the current live bid, causing a potential loss of a bid from an interested party on the other side of the computer screen.
All in all, I like the LiveAuctioneers platform. It does deliver a large number of interested participants, and the software is functional, if without a certain elegance & ease of function. With some minor tweaks primarily aimed at decreasing keystrokes & increasing efficiency, LiveAuctioneers could be a great platform. I'm hoping it continues to improve.
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