Questions to ask when selecting an Auction House (?)

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Musashi

Not a question, but something you can do on your own:

Look at past auctions, how have they done on items similar to yours in the past? Who seems to get the best results on similar items?

Factor any differences in results into the information you've gotten regarding rates to see the truly best deal (e.g. If the AH giving you back 10% of the BP typically realizes a final price with BP that's 25% lower than a house not giving back any BP, which one is putting more money in your pocket.)

Look at how there auctions are organized. How easy are they to search? If you were looking at the auction as a buyer, how would you feel about the titles, descriptions, photo quality, etc.

IMO any assessment of which auction house does best on a particular type of material is not going to be readily apparent by browsing a few past results. It would probably take an awful lot of data and a statistical analysis to control for all sorts of variables. I highly doubt given the efficiency of the market where all major auctions are readily accessible and publicized that there will be any totally obvious patterns that can be detected from a casual perusal.