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I’m being told that countless auctioneers across the country contract with sellers to sell everything “without reserve” a.k.a. “absolute” and then don’t. In other words, an absolute auction is not advertised as absolute so the public believes it is “with reserve” or more importantly they don’t believe it’s “absolute.”
I know this is probably true, and I keep hearing it from other auctioneers that it’s true so we’ll start with this: online auction bidders don’t read. Basically an online auction bidder sees what he wants, and clicks to bid on it …
I’ve heard it many times in my career — confidence is an auctioneer’s stock-in-trade, confidence is an auctioneer’s most valuable asset, confidence makes an auctioneer … and many other variations.
The particular definition of confidence in which I’m referring is more so “self-confidence:”
"… a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities."
Our topic here concerns the sale of a horse named Eloquent Diva at auction where the buyer found shortly thereafter his new purchase had a congenital heart condition. As might be expected, the horse was sold “as-is.” The particular disclaimer used:
Comparing or contrasting statistics from auctions can be fun. One auctioneer had a live auction with 450 bidders and 1,126 lots sold. Another auctioneer had an online auction with 450 bidders, 1,126 lots sold, 29 bids per lot, 26,743 views of the auction prior and 395 of those 450 bidders (87.8%) placing bids.
We previously wrote about the somewhat perplexing situation where the seller is bidding first in regard to the “last good faith bid.” That article is here:https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/what-if-the-seller-bids-first/
We attempted to calculate how many auctioneers there were in the United States in 2010. At that time, we estimated there were between 80,000 and 100,000 auctioneers based largely on anyone who would claim to be an auctioneer: https://mikebrandlyauctioneer.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/how-many-auctioneers-are-there/
This telephone call more or less started with a question … “Can my auctioneer just walk away?” “Quit?” My answer after getting more information was, “Probably.”
Occupational licensing — auctioneer licensing — might be changing across the United States. Reports and studies note that billions of dollars are wasted licensing occupations which don’t necessarily need licensed.
Many auctioneers conduct live auctions. Many auctioneers conduct online-only auctions. Many auctioneers conduct simulcast auctions. A few are suggesting that there is threat to the live auction industry due to more and more preferring online or simulcast events. I disagree.