News

What Cheeses Me Off!

13th Jan 2010

Breednet - Tara Madgwick - Wednesday, 13 January 2010

People of a certain vintage will have fond memories of a segment on the old* Hey Hey It’s Saturday show hosted by Darryl Sommers entitled What Cheeses Me Off! And we’ve decided to give it a run this week in reference to auction house websites.

For the serious bloodstock industry participant or even just the keen enthusiast, the auction house website is a place you are going to be visiting frequently over the next few months so we thought it was time to have a closer look at them – the good, the bad and the just plain annoying.

Pre-Sale

It used to be that all the auction house needed to do was get the pedigrees online and make them easily accessible and searchable for internet users, but now we have video and photos added to the mix and they have to be factored into the equation.

This is done with varying degrees of success and in different ways by each auction house.

Inglis combine the actual photo, pedigree, video link and pedigree updates all on the one page, providing the most information of any auction house in the one place, although you pay for the privilege in that the pages can be slow to load.

NZB provide all that bar the photo of the horse, while Magic Millions are yet to make any attempt to streamline their media and pedigrees into the one page.

Withdrawals are also an important part of the pre-sale run-up and ideally need to be integrated with the pedigree pages as soon as they are withdrawn, there is zero point in wasting time looking at a horse that is withdrawn.

Search engines are also important and again all the auction houses offer something different with Inglis installing the most advanced including the ability to find yearlings with nicks and crosses, but do people use it, we’d love to know what the audience thinks on that one.

During the Sale

We want to know results as they happen, see the coverage on video stream ( a necessity now with internet bidding) and keep track of the vital statistics such as average and clearance.

In an ideal world the pedigrees should be integrated with the results so straight away you can click on a particular lot to see the pedigree of that horse, Inglis and NZB are all over that one, but again Magic Millions make no attempt.

Sortable results are also desirable, so we can straight away at any given time sort to see the top lots, the bottom lots, if you’re that way inclined and what is happening with buyers, sires, vendors etc.

Again Inglis and NZB all over it, nothing yet from Magic Millions, although one really annoying thing with the Inglis and NZB sort is that it always defaults to the bottom of the market first when sorting by price, come on guys you know we want the top lots not the bottom, why make us click and sort twice!

The only issue with a sortable list of results is finding one particular horse quickly, yes you can sort by dam and find it in the alphabetical list or by lot number, but in a sale of 600 or more horses that can be annoying, so the Kiwis have solved that one with a quick search box where you type in a sire, dam, lot number or vendor, problem solved.

Also did anyone notice in the Magic Millions results we have 600 on one page and then a tiny box to click on to give you the last 90, if a page can fit 600, why not 690!

Post-Sale

Hypothetical – My mate has bought a yearling and told me to go to the auction house website to have a look at the pedigree and photo.

How many clicks does it take to get to the pedigree page and then the photo?

NZB - 3 clicks + 1 for photo

Inglis – 4 clicks, photo on the pedigree page

Magic Millions – 5 clicks to the pedigree, 2 more clicks to the photo

You’ve heard some of the things that cheese me off, so what cheeses you off?

Have your say and send your thoughts or suggestions to media@breednet.com.au

Constructive criticism or deserved praise will be passed on to the relevant auction houses, so now is your time to speak up if you have a gripe.