Consider then the impact of knowing that 15 people have expressed interest in an item, to know this when you run searches in the AED and to further know that if you post this item we will notify each party and confirm to you that we have done so. This process has the power to alter what is sent into the rooms, how it is estimated, who bids and how much is paid. In the world as we see it there is increasing clarity and a rising role for auctions to clear material as it comes to market.
We do not do this for the benefit of auction consignors alone. While we will match all upcoming auction lots we will also match all listings in Books for Sale. Sellers, be they dealers, institutions or collectors, will all benefit by this approach and can offer their material to those who read and research on AE.
To do this we need to focus on the next generation. To accomplish this we need all auction houses we support to handle more of the mechanical aspects of uploading the listings. We encourage you to provide images to more forcefully convey a positive impression. We will integrate these images into home page presentations and provide mechanisms for those interested to see your catalogues as a slideshow with viewer controls.
We are of course now triangulating searches in our databases so that a search anywhere finds relevant records everywhere on the site. In beta testing more than 90% of items in upcoming auctions were opened when the number of search results is 7 or less. Because less than 20% of the market thinks of checking upcoming auctions as an efficient use of time, including them in all search results brings them to the attention of the much larger audience that conducts research and browses Books for Sale.
