Surprised by the activity last night post holiday. I had wines being bid on in the extended periods which I don’t see often.
+1 on Subterraneum. I don’t have storage there (obvs b/c I live in Indiana), but I’ve met the owner. He is a really good guy and the space is really good.
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May have been for some certain bottles or random bidding wars?
On the other hand, I think K&L auctions have been on fire lately. Lots of activities there.
Disaster tonight for sellers – site was completely frozen for at least the final 15 minutes when I tried quite a few times to get in to bid on a few bottles.
Not the end of the world for a buyer, and maybe a chance at a steal for those who bid earlier, but man would I be upset if I had some prime bottles available for sale and the site wouldn’t open or take bids near the end . .
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Extremely frustrating as a seller. Wtf!!
That’s not great to hear. I was using them to sell for the first time and had nearly 50 bottles up for bid. Things did seem to go a bit lower than I had expected.
So does anyone here still use this as a selling platform. I have like 5-7 cases of stuff I want to move. It’s not high-dollar wine. Just some things I want to get rid of.
Yes. It can be good for that type of wine.
I just sold 200 bottles in the $30-150 range and everything sold through in, I think, 8 weeks? Most qent in the first 4.
Be aware they just increased their minimum fee per bottle to $10, so on a $50 bottle the fee is 20% regardless of the dollar value you consign.
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They are the only auction house that takes lower dollar value wines, for the most part, though. I sent them hundreds of bottles in the $30-40 price range and was happy to get $20-30 net for them, especially with free pickup.
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The free pickup over a certain $ value consigned ($10k? $15k?) sold me on it. KL is interested in them as well, but dont provide that.
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Glad it’s not just me, I’ve been seeing this a lot lately, and at random times, pretty frustrating for sure.
What did it use to be?
As a first-time seller, I’d temper your expectations about the prices your wines might realize.
I’ve made 12 consignments over the past 20+ years, and the majority of wines sold at the reserve. Occasionally a bottle would receive 2-4 bids, but I can only recall a handful where there was what one might call a “bidding war”
I’m preparing a consignment right now and only including those bottles where the reserve (minus fees) is a sufficient return for me. If the bottle gets bid up over the reserve, that’s great but I’m not counting on it.
I don’t know what happened last night, but I do find it disturbing …
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The minimum commission was previously $8
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I think it’s all about how desirable your bottles are. I’ve had a lot of success and plenty of bottles getting bid way above reserve pricing, and I’ve had my fair share of bottles sitting for weeks and selling at or below initial reserve.
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I’d generally agree with that; there are some wines that go for above the reserve, but they’re usually pretty rare or desirable bottles. I would say in general probably about 30-50% of my bottles went for above reserve but usually only 1-2 bids, with a few exceptions that went for a lot.
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That sounds like my experience as well.
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This is very dependent on the wine. My usual pattern is about half or more of a consignment sells the first week, and of the portion that sells, about 25% of total revenue is realized by bidding in the last few hours. It’s true that most sell uncontested, but when there is a contest, there is plenty of activity. Nothing wrong with that - it just means that they’re usually pretty accurate about pricing the reserve, and when they miss, which is usually with rarer bottles with less sales data, the market does its thing.
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I’m unhappy as a bidder, too.
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