New Auction House Being Formed Using CBTechlive.com Software

Collectors, consigners, dealers, mom and pop businesses and powersellers are being requested to sign up to help found a new Auction House which will auction up to 10,000 lots per day in Themed or Cataloged auctions using new software.

Columbia City, IN (PRWEB) March 28, 2006 -- Past co-founder of CatBecca Auctions decides to re-start the business model which auctioned 1000 lots per week live and on eBayLive Auctions from in 2001-2005. A David and Goliath story which reached seven figures in sales by 2004, was the subject of several national headline stories and landed several high profile auctions.

“We parted ways” in early 2005 stated Michael Whelchel who helped to found the company for the benefit of his two girls Cat and Becca, “then management made some bad calls, competition with the number of live auctions affected them and they went out of business in late 2005. It was a shame to see years of hard work go down the drain. But I had decided to focus on auction software for the live auction business, and that proved to be the best choice.”

Consignors, estate owners, collectors, powersellers and dealers are looking for innovative ways to sell items they have acquired or inherited. The magic about CatBecca was they knew how to reach the online bidder (80% sold online) and how to package “themes” such as carnival glass or oriental auctions. Themed or cataloged auctions are best sold using live auction technology. Bidders appreciate auctions which have exactly what they are looking for and those which are “fair” and disclose needed information, not “as is where is”. They enjoy sitting at a terminal and clicking on what they want to bid on when they can trust the source.

“Major companies merge together to capture a greater market share, that is the direction I envision for this business idea” stated Michael. “David” groups can pool together and create “events”. These “events” or focused catalogs will attract attention, attention attracts higher bids and higher bids attracts more important estates. Super auctions with over 2000-10000 lots available to all bidders in a prime auction slot.

Normally, a catalog auction can run about 700-1000 lots per day, or less if the items are high end. Many times a live auction will only have a few items of interest to a bidder. It is a proven fact that bidders are attracted to live auctions which have more “matches” on what the bidder is looking for.

This new auction house, using CBTechlive.com software, would set a theme such as “art glass” for a given Sunday and members associated with the auction house could list any pieces of art glass they have available for sale. Only members could add lots and they would need to process each through a vetting process from a team of finishers / researchers to reduce mis-identification. Members would be carefully pre-selected as proven solid businesspeople. Because the new technology allows for multiple rings, up to 10,000 lots could be run on the same prime Sunday slot at the same time. Sound impossible?

Using special screens and filtering technology developed by CBTechlive.com the bidder can now effectively bid in real time on all 10 rings -- or filter what he wants to bid on down to a smaller number of lots. “These would be grand events attracting large amounts of bidders”. Live, phone bidders could choose locations all over the world to bid on virtual lots viewing them on large screens or terminals.

“If a collector of art glass had to choose from attending a live auction with 10 pieces of art glass vs one with 10000 lots the choice would be a no brainier” commented John Scherz, the director of research with the new auction house. Pooling together such massive collections also helps to pool resources for advertising, promotion and getting prime attention on eBayLive Auctions. It is well known fact that part of CatBecca’s problems was from increased competition on eBay making it more and more difficult to “get noticed.”

The new auction house is still being named and is now seeking members to join at the ground level. Can it attract more online bidders and obtain high profile consignments or estates like it’s predecessor? Is the live auction business evolving into more of an online experience or are these David and Goliath stories going to lose out to -- Goliath?

Time will tell.

However the days of place the item on the table and sell it to a paddle waving crowd is going the way of the dodo bird. Bidders are now more technologically savvy and are demanding better software solutions to make it easier for “them”.

The liveauction business generates over $250 billion in sales annually per NAA numbers. On top of this “food chain” stands the consignor or estate owner who decides how his items will be sold. Will technology continue to be important with his decision -- you bet. Price rules!

Want to become part of this new auction house? Visit this website for more information before the link is taken down, http://www.cbtechlive.com/collectabase

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