Quote:
Originally Posted by kailes2872
Josh called me today to let me know that the website was up and running and to encourage me to participate in the October auction as there were over 42,000 items for sale and "there could be some deals to be had."
My response:
1.) While the deals to be had for the collectors would be great, I would be pretty upset as a consigner if that is what they think will happen. He said that there will be plenty of word of mouth and eventually people would come to register for the site. They were very bullish on the November auction.
2.) I asked about their software and if they could see ceiling bids. He said that they hired a 3rd party and would not have visibility to those.
3.) I asked about shill bidding and their response to Ebay as that is defamation if not true and their entire reputation and brand is at risk with that allegation. He said that the way that it is worded, puts them at risk - in the sense that they could not guarantee that someone's friend pushed a bid (not to their knowledge, but it would be hard to defend against the wording). He said that the new platform would actually help against that because it would protect against shell accounts and burner accounts being made in order to shill a bid - as it would require verified registration. He also said that it would probably be futile going up the resources of such a large company - to which I replied that if my reputation was at stake and it was untrue, I would fight to my last dollar to clear my name.
He did add that their policies prohibit any house bidding on items and any vested interest from their team bidding in an auction.
It was a nice conversation and he had an answer for everything that I asked. It sounds like the platform will be similar in execution to many of the other auction houses with an online platform.
I'm not buying much at the time as I can't seem to adjust to new prices and where the bids are going. I'll probably keep an eye on it to see the prices realized, but I don't see myself jumping in right away even if was actively adding to the collection right now.
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Big question here is: will they be hitting winners with a 20% premium added on to the hammer price? If so, I'm out.