LiveAuctioneers logs top month for sales in post eBay period

NEW YORK – The month of May came in like a lion and stayed that way for LiveAuctioneers.com, with online purchases of art, antiques and quality collectibles at their auction house partners’ sales totaling a record-setting $7.9 million.

Founded in November 2002, Manhattan-based LiveAuctioneers.com provides real-time Internet bidding capability to more than 900 auction houses worldwide.

“This is a record for any month since our post-eBay era began on January 1st of 2009,” LiveAuctioneers CEO Julian R. Ellison said June 17. “The last time we saw numbers like that was in November of 2008, when we were still in a marketing partnership with eBay. During that particular month, Internet purchases made through LiveAuctioneers totaled $7.7 million.” EBay discontinued its Live Auctions division on Dec. 31, 2008.

The top lot of May 2010 for LiveAuctioneers was a Takashi Murakami artwork acquired by an Internet bidder for $602,500 in Phillips de Pury’s May 13 sale of the Halsey Minor collection.

Ellison said he believes June’s statistics quite possibly could surpass those of May, especially in light of the $1.1 million in recorded during Profiles in History’s June 10-12 Hollywood Auction No. 40. More than 900 individuals registered to bid via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers over the three-day auction period, and in all, 520 lots – an average of 40.8 percent of Profiles in History’s inventory – were sold each day through LiveAuctioneers.

All-important underbidders set the stage for success at the Profiles in History auction, with underbids placed through LiveAuctioneers totaling $194,675. During the opening session, 57.43 percent of the underbids came through LiveAuctioneers, while on day two, the corresponding figure was 48.48 percent. During the third and final session, participants bidding online through LiveAuctioneers were responsible for a remarkable 90.75 percent of the sale’s underbids. ?

You might also enjoy:

     • Sampling of top lots sold via LiveAuctioneers.com
     • Postcard prices realized vary at auction
     • On the Web: Weathervanes and lightning rods
     • Antique German military figures dominated old toy auction
     • Guest Column: Top 10 reasons to be wary of online bidding