[BigJJ]

In instances in which an auction house actually wins an item, as opposed to just bidding, the auction house loses the buyers premium from what would have been a non-auction house high bidder, so saying an auction house gets the piece at a good size discount to non-auction house bidders by not paying a buyers premium (or by paying buyers premium to another company business) is not really accurate. There is a smidgen of a discount - the amount of buyers premium the auction house would have paid (if they were not the auction house) at the price they won the item, less the amount of buyers premium the losing non-auction house bidder would have paid if the auction house had not bid and won. Therefore, I do not think this is much of a factor.