Online Art Auctions

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The Economist might explore the idea that a new auction technology can determine how to compensate for the “presence in the room”  and measure it in a way that is meaningful for the participants. A new auction system also  introduces new variables that change the playing field for in-person and online presences.

• “The psychology of buying at auction still tends to favour the bidder in the room. He or she is part of the audience and can judge more easily whether competing bidders are approaching their limit. That is one reason why Christie’s has been slow to introduce online bidding in its high-end evening sales of contemporary art.”

The world’s biggest saleroom

Nov 26th 2009 The Economist
Auctions are moving online

Now technology has opened up another possibility: online bidding. The auction houses are divided. Matthew Girling, Bonhams’s chief executive for Europe and the Middle East, is against it: “We’re not building an online business.” Sotheby’s has an elegant website that allows customers to browse its catalogues, look at sales figures going back all the way to 1998 and get real-time auction results for several sales at once. But it stops short of letting clients take part in auctions online, except for wine.

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941237