Mossgreen managing director Paul Sumner, who has also run both Sotheby's Australia and Sotheby's Olympia in the past, believes his company has come up with a solution that answers criticism levelled at auctioneers via ATG's letters pages in recent weeks concerning pre-sales service.
Writing on this week's Letters page in ATG's printed newspaper, he explains that he and his specialists now devote more time to catalogue preparation, increasing the level of detail on condition in catalogue descriptions significantly.
"By taking multiple photos and doing condition reports as part of the initial cataloguing process, we are changing the back end functionality of our business," he writes. "While it takes twice as long to catalogue up front, the amount of work required at peak activity times around auctions is vastly reduced.
"Specialists need to be trained in digital photography also. But by having this all available on the website where access to reports and multiple images is actioned by the buyers and without the need for our staff to email clients images and condition reports in every individual case, efficiency levels of our business are greatly increased.
"This requires a software operating system that is compatible to this functionality and a website that also makes these services clear to the buyers. It also requires the auctioneer to look differently at the way their specialists catalogue items."
The benefit of this is the reduction in pressure around sale times, he says, when resources are stretched to capacity and often the lots being enquired about are mid to low-value.
