News

BID ONLINE IN REAL TIME DURING INGLIS AUCTIONS

19th Jan 2008

In keeping with their recent ground breaking developments, William Inglis & Son are delighted to announce a new, innovative service for their clients – live internet bidding during thoroughbred auctions. Inglis will be the first thoroughbred company outside of the USA to introduce this type of service.

In association with Live Global Bid (LGB), the service will enable anyone to bid online direct at auction from anywhere in the world. In announcing this partnership, Inglis managing director Mark Webster explains that the move is all part of improving the service to both vendor and purchaser. “Our goal will always be to get buyers to attend our sales in person, but LGB's real time, online auction bidding technology is the next best thing to being there and we feel there is a real opportunity to broaden our buying bench by offering this free supplementary service. We have selected Live Global Bid (LGB) as our exclusive partner because they have a proven track record in delivery.”

LGB run over 2,000 live auctions per month and average over $US 40 million per day in internet sales on behalf of clients. Their technology has been integrated into auction management systems worldwide and is currently utilised by California-based auction house, Barretts. Barretts have been using LGB for the past few years and have had particular success with their breeding stock sales where buyers are more comfortable buying remotely. At their last breeding stock sale, a significant percentage of all lots were sold via the internet - mostly to new buyers in Canada and the East Coast of the USA. Pickles, Australia’s largest used car auctioneering firm have also been using this for the past four years and report very good results.

Inglis have trialled the system and have achieved almost instant receipt of bids in the auctioneers box from around the world, using our staff in the USA, UK and NZ as trial bidders. “We will launch this service for the Autumn Thoroughbred sale to be held at Newmarket on March 17.” Webster explains. The auction house will be providing demonstrations to industry participants during the Premier sale in Melbourne from March 2-6, and will conduct one on one training with prospective buyers who are interested in such as service.

After registering and gaining credit approval prior to the sale, online bidders will simply go to www.inglis.com.au on sale day and login to their account. Online bidders will be able to see the horse live in the ring, hear the auctioneer, access pedigree information, view sirecam video, monitor sale statistics and see all bids as they are made from other online bidders in addition to bids from the sales ring. To bid, they will simply need to click on the bid button.

“This service will be particularly popular during breeding stock sales, but we also expect weanling and yearling buyers will find the service useful. Buyers who are able to inspect horses prior to a sale but can’t stay for the entire duration of the sale will now be able to bid from their office or home after departing the sale grounds. We firmly believe that innovation is critical to our business and we are dedicated to making the whole auction process easier and more convenient. The introduction of live internet bidding is just another step forward for Inglis and its clients and follows on from other new developments such as our world first internet based x-ray repository, our revolutionary $2.5m race series for Inglis Yearling Sale graduates of 2008 and our new Easter format.” Webster concludes.

To preview this exciting new service go to www.inglis.com.au and click on the online bidding link.