Planning a proper date for an Online Auction
To ensure that we have the timing right, we need to discuss the time of year and day or days of the week to conduct your particular auction sale. We also need to consider other factors that may affect your auction and will discuss these with you.
Venue or Location
Choosing the proper location for your auction is very important. Your Place or Ours? In some cases hosting the online auction in home is best, however, some times removing the items from your home and displaying them at our auction facility is better suited. We will assess and determine what suits each of our Clients best needs. An online auction may attract increased general interest and capture a larger bidder registration than an auction held at a local live auction venue.
This in part is due to the age we live in. Technology and the age of our population have moved in a direction that allows a large majority of our auction bidders to become Internet educated. Many Folk’s who were familiar with an onsite live auction, in the past couple of decades, are not able to easily attend and the new auction bidders like the comfort of bidding from their own computer. At KELSOBID.COM we have over 200,000 registered bidders (and growing) that will know about your auction, a testament that our online presence has become a successful venue to host your auction.
Cleaning, Preparation and Organization
It is critical that each item and the venue are as presentable as possible to look their best on auction day. There may be times that an unusual or rare antique may be best left in its original state. We will work with you to determine this well before sale day. A listing of all of the items (assets) to be sold at the auction will be carefully detailed and special attention to specifications and significance of each will be catalogued.
Photography and Description of Your Items
All of the marketing photography will be prepared along with a detailed description of each item. Special attention to Featured Items will be used to form part of the marketing for the auction. Since the merchandising of the items will be mainly online it is very important that we take as many quality photos to ensure that the buyers will know what they are bidding on, even though the bidders will still have an opportunity to physically preview the items before the auction.
Setup and Merchandising
Now comes the time to physically place the items. We have determined earlier where our venue is going to be, now we decide what is sold and where. Once that is in place we can go ahead and begin to stage the auction. Merchandising an auction sale is not unlike the way a retailer would set up their store. Each item (asset) or group of the same known as a “lot” will be assigned a Control Number to assist us in identifying them, and a Unique Lot Number and will be set or placed in a manner to be sold to realize the best possible price at the auction. We want to have things in place to realize top dollar for each item. EVERY item has its value, no matter how small. An auction attracts many people and not everyone is there to buy a high dollar item, but may only have $10.00 to spend. As well, someone who is going to buy a high dollar item may not buy a $10.00 item but they both may well bid against each other at some point. We look at each item with the same importance as the other.
Marketing
While the auction setup is going strong back on site, our office is busy taking all the information that has been acquired about the auction. With this, they are busy preparing the proper ads, brochures, flyers and catalogues. A successful auction is so dependent on the proper marketing strategy. Kelso & Company Auctioneers and KELSOBID.COM have proven marketing tools and a large database of qualified buyers globally. These resources will ensure that the right buyers for your type of auction will know about it well before sale day. We will also “piggyback” Your auction in cross promotion with other auctions and marketing and may also allow a Neighbor to consign items if we feel it will enhance your auction.
Auction Preview
We will prepare an auction preview or inspection period. This allows prospective bidders the chance to inspect the items they may wish to bid on prior to the auction. Each auction will have a preview or inspection period that suits that type of auction.
Auction Day
Well the day has arrived. For an online auction, we use a one day format that has proven to create that same sense of urgency to bid as a live auction does. The auction usually starts the day after the preview at 8:00am and starts to close at 8:00pm. We utilize a Dynamic Close method also. This ensures that if a bidder waits until the last few seconds of the auction to place the bid, the bidding clock automatically extends another 10 minutes and keeps on doing so until no further bids are placed for a 10 minute period of time. That is when that lot will show completed. This ensures that the consignor will achieve all active bids to realize the top price for their items at the auction.
Collections and Pickup
This will be completed the day after the auction at the venue. Buyers will pay their invoice and pick up the items they have successfully bid on at the auction venue. We accept Most payment methods. No Items will leave the premises until they are paid for in full. All items sell as is with all faults and no returns.
Settle up
Now it is time to settle with you, our client. We will be taking care of this promptly within the terms of our contract and in the most professional manner. You will be issued a cheque that is reflective on our contract that we both have agreed on prior to the auction. At this time we encourage any feed back that you may have. We will ensure by this time that your auction site has been totally cleaned and left in a manner agreeable to both of us, and that all details have been taken care of in their entirety.