August. 17, 2006

Real-estate auctioneers show keen interest in adding Internet bidding to their sales

ORLANDO, Fla. — Annually, the country’s largest gathering of auctioneers and associated companies is the NAA convention, which this year was held during the week of July 10 in Orlando, Fla. Founded in 1948, the NAA, or National Auctioneers Association, is the United States’ premier organization for auction professionals, boasting approximately 6,000 members. The team from LiveAuctioneers, which is an active member of the NAA, was excited over the prospect of attending this year’s convention and meeting old and new friends, alike.

In the exhibition hall, LiveAuctioneers’ staff designed a tented booth that replicated a remote boardroom, complete with conference table and plasma screen hooked up to a high-speed-connected laptop. Each day from July 12-15, LiveAuctioneers held mini-seminars that commenced every 45 to 90 minutes. Auctioneers were invited to sit down in a comfortable, relaxed environment and view the live-auction process from start to finish. “The interest level was exceptionally high,” said LiveAuctioneers’ Sr. VP Sales, Scott Miles. “Our seminars were packed throughout the day, every day.”

The visual program and the knowledge it conveyed in a step-by-step fashion, could not have been more timely. LiveAuctioneers had been invited to contribute to an NAA seminar titled “eBay ‐ Friend or Foe?,” and at that event, LiveAuctioneers’ CEO, Julian Ellison answered questions from the audience. Afterward, he remarked that he had been “very surprised to see how many auctioneers didn’t have much knowledge of eBay Live and how it, together with LiveAuctioneers, could dramatically improve their auction results.”

“We generated a tremendous amount of new business from our participation at the NAA convention,” Ellison said. “We were especially pleased that, in addition to signing new fine-arts clients, we also were approached by many auctioneers from the real estate, business and industrial sectors. Internet live bidding is definitely the future for real estate sales, and we expect this area to show dramatic growth on our Web site during the next few years. We believe Roebuck Auctions’ Aug. 19 sale of 227 subdivision lots in Bella Vista, Arkansas, which will be run through LiveAuctioneers, is going to be a huge success. Roebuck is already one of the best-respected names in real estate. Internet bidding will open a whole new avenue in which real estate buyers from anywhere in the world can participate in their sales.”

Based in New York City, LiveAuctioneers.com now provides Internet bidding and catalog services, in association with eBay Live Auctions, to 472 auction houses in 13 countries.