ThePortForum.com

Got my invoice from Bonhams for the last wine sale, and find they've hiked the buyers premium up from 10% to 15% - ouch!

Bonhams are not the most attentive auctioneer when it comes to lot descriptions, and their list of saleroom notices is inexcusably long.

But they did have the lowest BP of the London salerooms - not any more..

By my reckoning, the saleroom that gets the best prices for vendors is Straker Chadwick in Abergavenny, but because their BP is a flat fee of £6 (+ VAT) the buyers come off happy as well (excepting lots that sell for very small sums)

Internet only wine auctions have not taken off in the UK - yet - I wonder if they will??

Tom

ouch. Glad I did not bid against you, they also have a bizarre identity policy nowadays. Like I would launder money in GBP 400 boxes of port but never mind. I am just being lazy!

I agree with Tom that Straker Chadwick are likely to benefit from the London insurers move to increase their buyer's premiums. I always take into account the BP when setting my maximum bid and so will generally be happy to offer a higher price at Straker's.

Its been a while since I bid at Bonhams and so I had forgotten that their BP used to be 10%, those were the days...

I must admit that I am reluctant to use internet auctions for wine as I prefer to be able to see what I am buying, check fill levels and general conditions and so on. Difficult to do this when all you have to go on is a photo.

Alex

I talked to Tom Chadwick about this a while back - I remember him pointing out that people selling wine are extremely bad at describing their bottles correctly.

For an internet only auction to work well, the bottles would still need to be taken to a central location and expertly described.

But the sales themselves could be smaller and more frequent, - possibly on a rolling continuous basis like eBay, or possibly as a weekly list, published on a Sunday, and concluded at intervals of a minute or two the following Saturday morning, with bids submitted in much the same manner as on eBay. Payments could be automatically drawn from debit cards.

With minimal overheads, and no need for prestigious premises, the operation could be profitable at half the commission currently charged - the real challenge would be to get the operation established..

Tom