The High Cost of Auctions-- Sotheby's increases buyers fee!

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Posted By: Jim VB

Gee Barry, you left out the current, most popular option which is 20% from the seller AND 20% from the buyer!

I find it interesting that this industry is one of the few, if not only, business models which has evolved where the buyer pays an additional fee.

When you buy a house, the real estate agents fee comes from the sellers proceeds.

When you buy a car, the salesman's commission comes from the dealer, not the car buyer.

Furniture? Men's suits? Same thing.

All those business models have evolved such that the revenue/fee comes from the person receiving the money, not the person paying out. Only in the collectibles/art world does it work differently. Of course, Ebay reverts to the traditional model and has become the largest auctioneer in the world in just a coiuple of years.

I should get an MBA student to research this.