Thirty years or more after the birth of Computer Aided Livestock Marketing (CALM, the precursor to AuctionsPlus), annual breeders store sales in Victoria have begun to embrace the use of digital age selling technology.
While Swan Hill and Bendigo special store sheep sales were the first this spring to engage online bidding, with Elite Livestock Auctions, Euroa in the state’s mid-northeast will interface its December 7 cattle weaner sale and its December 14 cattle female sale with AuctionsPlus while conducting a physical auction is its under-roof market yards.
Euroa agent Russell Mawson, Landmark, said the concept would require a little more work from selling agents.
However with the feed that’s in the country, and the inquiry that presently exists for breeders’ line of cattle, Mr Mawson said it was a perfect opportunity to explore interfaces for saleyards markets, which expand bidding opportunities for buyers unable to attend the sale.
“As agents and sellers, we are mindful of the commitment our local communities have made to our saleyards. We want to continue to use and support these facilities but we also want to encourage additional competition, and an online platform like AuctionsPlus provides a vehicle to achieve this goal,” he said.
“The AuctionsPlus system, we believe, has become a much more mature sales outlet during the past few years of drought and dry weather. Everyone seems to have gained more faith in the accuracy of the assessments, and the greater numbers of people now using the system, has built extra the confidence and expanded opportunities for sellers.”
AuctionsPlus business development manager, Kieran O’Gorman said a lot of work had been done to streamline the workload and the cost of interfacing AuctionsPlus into traditional multi-vendor saleyard markets.
The system has worked well in large one vendor sales for some time, he said, but to the achieve the same success with multi-listings had been a challenge.
In order to generate the required sales information, Mr O’Gorman said agents would make group assessments on each vendor’s sale line, comprising how many ways each lot might be drafted, an estimate of the weight, the breed, the genetics, veterinary treatments and pastures etc.
This information will be uploaded with photographs for pre-sale viewing one week prior, and then on sale day each lot will be drafted, weighed and catalogued according to the order of the sale. Mr O’Gorman said the information would be uploaded by at least 10am.
“AuctionsPlus has 35,000 unique visitors each month and 45,000 registered bidders and if we can encourage only a fraction of this interest the effort will be worthwhile,” Mr Mawson said.
