Consignment/Lot Considerations

Consignment/Lot Considerations

In general, when an affiliate has a high percentage of lots without bids, it means they need to address any or all of the following issues:   lot composition, starting bid prices and/or asset types.    Below are a few questions I suggest every affiliate ask themselves when they lot an auction: 

• Will bidders be interested in what I’m selling?Do a quick search of K-BID’s closed auctions to see what similar items have sold for in the past.  If you find that there were only a couple people interested enough to even place a bid, it’s probably likely you’d see the same level of interest if you included the item(s) in one of your auctions.

• Are my lots valuable enough for bidders to take the time to bid on them? Give bidders something to bid on.  Competitive bidding is essential for auction success.  If your lots aren’t valuable enough to allow for several incremental bids, you’ve completely lost out on the power of an auction. 
• Will I make enough money on this lot to cover costs and build my business?  Auctions are labor intensive --- between photographing, writing descriptions, taking phone calls from bidders, staffing an inspection and a removal day, processing invoices, settling with the seller, filing and paying sales taxes to the state and paying K-BID the buyer’s premium collected on the auction….conducting an auction requires too many resources to bother with lots worth less than $30 - $50.  It’s important to remember it takes the same amount of resources to conduct a $500 auction as it takes to conduct a $5,000 auction.
• Am I sending the right message about my auction services? An affiliate’s reputation with bidders and sellers is based on the auctions they’ve conducted and the assets they’ve sold. If an affiliate is known for conducting auctions with low value assets/lots, only bidders interested in low value lots will pay attention to their auctions.  The same goes for sellers, if you’re known for low value auctions/lots, only sellers with low value assets will consider consigning with you.
• What risks am I taking by my lot composition? In the case of low value lots, the additional risk is related to NO SHOWS.  Winning bidders with invoice totals below $50 are 4X more likely to be a NO SHOW than a winning bidder with an invoice total above $50.