When we talk to agents about Live Online Bidding we are always promoting the
many benefits over phone bidding. However, it wasn’t until this weekend that I experienced
them first hand when we attend the auction at 205/7 Warayama Place, Rozelle (NSW)
- marketed by Thomas Skelly of Century 21 Cordeau Marshall.
For those readers who have not heard of Live Online Bidding, the key benefits
of Live Online Bidding over phone bidding are:
- Buyers and vendors see and hear the auctioneer live.
- Buyers place bids live and not through a third party using a phone.
- The vendor’s agent can focus their attention on the bidders in the room
rather than keeping the phone bidders updated (ensuring they get the best price
for the vendor.)
Anyway, back to the story……
Ivan our online bidder was planning to bid at the auction from an internet cafe
in Perth. However, the internet cafe did not open until 11:00am Perth time which
was 2:00pm Sydney time (the time the auction was to begin). We mentioned to Ivan
that he always had the fall back position to bid on his behalf via the mobile phone.
When he arrived at the location of the internet cafe the mobile phone coverage
was poor with the connection dropping out at regular intervals. Ivan and I were
both trying to contact each other at the same time and going to each others voice
mail on regular occasions. It quickly became apparent that bidding using a mobile
phone would be disastrous!!!!!!!!!! Just image having the auctioneer pause the auction
every time we lost the mobile phone connection with Ivan.
After speaking with the agent and auctioneer we decided to delay the auction
for 5 minutes to allow Ivan to get into the internet cafe to use the Live Online
Bidding service as previously intended.
The auction started at $600,000 from an onsite bidder followed by an aggressive
online bid of $670,000. The property eventually sold for $825,000 after another
13 bids were placed at a rate of 3.75 bids per minute. Unfortunately, Ivan was the
under bidder.
That being said when we spoke with Ivan after the auction he said “being able
to watch the auctioneer live and place bids live was fantastic and it’s so easy
to bid. This is so much better that trying to place bids via the phone. … I would
definitely use this service again.”
As I look back now, Live Online Bidding allowed for what was a very successful
auction.
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