Christie's Online Auctions Are Part of Global Ecommerce Strategy

Traditional auction house Christie's will launch its first online-exclusive sale for a global collecting category this summer with Signature Cellars, an auction of fine and rare wines. The company said the launch marks "the next major step in the firm's market-leading global ecommerce strategy."

All browsing and bidding for individual lots will be done completely online, with the click of a mouse.

All of the top fine-art auction houses had a difficult time entering cyberspace in the early years, as buyers seemed reluctant to transact business online. eBay acquired Butterfield & Butterfield in 1999 and sold it to Bonhams 3 years later. In 2002, Sotheby's entered into a 3-year online deal with eBay, which hosted Sothebys.com, but the following year it abandoned online auctions on its website, instead using eBay Live Auctions (which itself was shuttered several years ago).

Over the past decade, online bidding has become as common as bidding by phone and fax. But the move to online-only auctions requires a significant investment in technology - a glitch during the auction can have a devastating effect on prices.

The e-catalog for the Signature Cellars sale goes live at Christies.com/signaturecellars on July 9. Online bidding for all lots opens on August 6 and continues for two weeks. Clients will click to register their bids, and receive updates throughout the two weeks on the progress of their desired lots.

Bidding will close on August 20, with each lot awarded to the highest bid at closing time. All payment is by credit card, and bidding registration is open to all clients, anywhere in the world. The total sale of 301 lots is estimated to achieve in excess of $750,000.

The company said it successfully completed two pilot online-only sales last fall and earlier this spring. The online-only component of The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor totaled $9.5 million, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $1 million, and the recent online-only charity auction of couture handbags by Hermes tripled expectations, raising $229,000.

"The success of these two pilots demonstrates our clients around the world are eagerly embracing online-only sales as a regular addition to Christie's calendar of traditional live auctions," said Steven P. Murphy, Christie's International CEO.

Murphy said Christie's had made a significant commitment over the past year to building its ecommerce platform so it could support online-only sales on a broader level. "With this new initiative, collectors will be able to experience the full theater of the online auction experience year-round through Christies.com," he said.

According to the press release announcing the online auctions in a section called "Digital Innovation at Christie's," the company wrote:

As a 246–year old company, Christie's has proven itself adept at embracing innovation while preserving its core business model. In July 2006, Christie's was the first international auction house to give clients worldwide access to bidding in its saleroom over the Internet, via Christie's LIVE; by 2007 the system was available across all Christie's salerooms worldwide. Since then, Christie's has continued to invest in digital assets, leading to the redesign of Christies.com in April 2008, the launch of Christie's iPhone and iPad apps in 2009 and 2010, and the introduction of our first online-only auction in 2011.