Since earlier this year many appraisers and collectors have been aware that EBay Live Auctions was shutting down at the end of 2008. Ebay and its partner, Live Auctioneers dominated the online auction world with many fine art and decorative art auctions running through the eBay online auction platform. Now, if you go to www.liveauctions.ebay.com you are automatically redirected to the main eBay home page.Also, to search the liveauctioneers database I had to register again, as my old eBay sign-in no longer worked. With the splintering from the eBay platform into a multitude of providers, I wonder how some of the online providers of auction house price databases may be affected as well. Both Liveauctioneers and ArtFact have price databases which are frequently accessed by appraisers. Will there be a splintering of price database content as well. The Liveauctioneers database was free, while the ArtFact price database was fee based.
A few weeks ago Antique Week ran an article on the new providers of online services. I did some searches on the internet, and I was surprised there was not more information on the new players in the online bidding world. They new independent providers according to Antique Week include:
- Liveauctioneers at www.liveauctioneers.com
- ArtFact at www.artfact.com
- Proxibid at www.proxibid.com
- Remote Bidder at Remotebidder.com (an Antique week joint venture)
Previously most online auction bidding companies partnered ran through the eBay live auctions platform. In doing so, all auction houses benefited from the large eBay network. Now, each online auction provider will have to develop ways to attract clients and collectors to their sites to view the online catalogs. I also wonder if the Goantiques - Worthpoint merger may impact online bidding and if they too plan on developing an online bidding platform. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
1 comment:
I notice Art Net now has an online art auction
going.
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