In addition to offering more lots, increasing the auction pace, providing a greater variety of categories, and enhancing the quality of photos per lot, auction houses should be more deliberate in how these diverse categories are tiered throughout the sale and how lots are sequenced.
One of the most effective ways to prioritize tiers within a category is by price point. Ideally, each category tier should contain around 25–30 objects. Subsequent tiers of the same category should be introduced later in the sale. This approach should be balanced by interspersing other categories throughout the sequence so that the first-tier levels of all categories are not concentrated at the beginning of the auction.
Ideally, tiering and sequencing should ensure that an auction “highlight” appears approximately every 100 lots. This strategy increases the likelihood of keeping buyers engaged throughout the entire sale, encouraging them to watch and bid from start to finish. In fact, it is common for our auctions to maintain more than 1,000 registered bidders watching the sale from beginning to end on at least one bidding platform, such as LiveAuctioneers.com, currently the largest online bidding platform in the world.
Momentum and bidding enthusiasm need to be especially strong at the start of an auction. Potential buyers often scan the first 50–100 objects in a sale to assess their interest and gauge the number of existing absentee bids.
Auction houses can generate enthusiasm and momentum by placing conservative estimates on highly desirable objects within the first 100 lots, encouraging absentee bids on the bidding platform. These absentee bids create a “self-fulfilling prophecy” effect by drawing attention to multiple objects at the start of the sale. As a result, buyers are enticed to explore the entire auction catalog further. The longer a buyer stays engaged and explores the sale, the higher the probability they will leave absentee bids and prioritize the auction as one to watch on the day of the event.