Do you manage an auction business and feel it hasn’t reached its full potential yet? In this article, we share some tips to help you scale it without limits and make sure it addresses the digital era we live in.
An auction can be more than buying and selling goods or services by offering them for bidding.
When supported by the right tools, an auction house can improve the value delivered to both vendors and buyers by adding services and handling them smoothly, maximizing the return on each item on sale.
The auction may be done in a physical place, in front of a live audience of interested bidders, or online, which is a growing option on recent years. In fact, the online auction business sector is expected to increase its market share by USD 1.90 billion from 2021 to 2026, as the market’s growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 9.7%, says a Technavio report.
Auction business: how to scale out
When managing an auction house there are some strategies to adopt in order to grow and scale business out, being one of the most important “going digital”. It’s critical to fit in the global economy, consider the new consumer demands and follow the latest tech trends. Otherwise, you will be overtaken by the competition.
So, start by exploring and embracing online auctions and not only physical ones. Online auctions are an unparalleled way to achieve a much wider audience and require much less logistics. Everything becomes faster, simpler, more efficient and convenient to sellers and buyers. And, of course, you can get exponentially higher revenue and profit. The world becomes your new client.
Note that you don’t have to abandon on-site auctions. You can simply increase their reach by providing a virtual access to them. Sometimes it can make sense to have physical auctions, others online and others live online. Do you imagine how far can you go?
Regarding online auctions, you also have a couple of options. Either to organize yourself with your own platform or integrate specialized platforms like we explain next (or both of them).
Your auction business in a specialized marketplace
If you are in the fine art, antiques and collectibles auction business, you really should take a look at Invaluable – the largest auction platform of its kind. They have 260,000+ items listed on the marketplace, 3.1 million monthly visits and already partnered with over 5,000 auction houses to make it easy for collectors from around the globe to discover and acquire the items they are most passionate about in one single place. Their suite of products and services provides auction houses with custom-fit solutions to take advantage of all of this. If you want to scale your auction business, here’s a great driver.
A complete tech platform to manage your auction business in 360º
A solid, robust and centralized tech solution is a must-have to efficiently manage, grow and control your auction business.
When supported by the right tools, an auction house can improve the value delivered to both vendors and buyers by adding services and handling them smoothly, maximizing the return on each item on sale.
The proper logistics business software solution will give you the appropriate control over the data, so it becomes easy to track inventory detail, such as stock location, stock movement and services to perform on each item. Only then, you may safely involve specialized partners to extend the auction house services adding value to items, for the benefit of both vendors and buyers.
Services such as cleaning and washing items, restoring and repairing damages, professional photography, document handling, transport and many others can be offered to customers, in a workflow-oriented manner, handled as simple tasks on the day-to-day operation until their completion. Provided the system offers full visibility on each item’s status, enabling proper inter-departmental communication, issuing warnings and alters, it can help users with robotic process automation so repeated activities become a memory of the past.
XPressBSS Customized Resource Planner by Blue Screen IT Solutions is the perfect software for auction houses. What makes it so special? There are many things, but we highlight these ones:
- CRM for both vendors and buyers
- Workflow-based inventory management system
- Fully mobile-base logistics management
- Robotic process automation for increased efficiency
- Tasks tracking
- Powerful lotting tools
- Support to physical and hybrid auctions
- Easy integration with existing systems and online auction and e-sales platforms
- Invoicing and payments management
- Robust, cloud-based, and secure platform
It is already implemented with success in several auction houses, so we truly believe that this solution is the right one to take your auction business to the next level. Know more and ask for a demo.