LiveAuctioneers signs 400th client, inks new deal with TIAS
May 8, 2006
NEW YORK – LiveAuctioneers.com, the Manhattan-based company that teams with eBay Live Auctions to provide real-time Internet technology to traditional auction houses worldwide, announced it has acquired its 400th auction-house client. The milestone was achieved last month with the signing of Czerny’s, a distinguished Italian auction house that specializes in fine antique arms and militaria. Czerny’s is the first Italian company to appear on LiveAuctioneers’ roster, which now facilitates Internet live bidding through eBay in more than a dozen countries.
Also in April, said LiveAuctioneers’ CEO, Julian Ellison, his company attracted 140,000 registered bidders and set a record for the number of cataloged auctions active on its site: 249. “And it looks like May will top that,” he added. “As of the end of the first week of May there were already 165 auction catalogs up and running.”
A March 30 report issued by the respected independent researchers comScore Media Metrix revealed that LiveAuctioneers.com is sixth among the top 10 auction sites in the world based on unique visitor hits from February 2005 to February 2006. LiveAuctioneers followed eBay in the no. 1 slot, Yahoo! Auctions at no. 5, and three other companies, bidz.com, ubid.com and andale.com. None of the latter three is an antiques or fine arts specialist. Over the 12-month period covered by the study, LiveAuctioneers’ unique visitors increased by 33 percent. “Over the last six months, the number of unique visitors per auction through LiveAuctioneers averaged 20,376,” said Ellison, “with an average of 640 bidders signing up per sale. That’s based on a total of 1,261 auctions.”
Gross sales on LiveAuctioneers’ Web site jumped almost 48 percent in 2005 when compared to the previous year, with a recorded 2005 total of $49,077,699. This year has started off even stronger. Gross sales for the first quarter were $14,645,582, more than 54 percent higher than the comparative quarter of 2005. The company’s first-quarter income shows a 128.7 percent increase over that of Q1 2005.
In its latest move, LiveAuctioneers has joined forces with TIAS, arguably the world’s most successful Web site of virtual antique shops. “Starting at the end of June, TIAS will be listing items for sale on eBay Live Auctions in association with LiveAuctioneers, and dealers who sell through TIAS will be able to include their wares in those auctions. We want to expand on this idea – which we began discussing with select antique galleries as long ago as 2003 – to make it available to top-quality antique malls all over the world. This new service could give the antiques trade overall a tremendous boost.”
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