Goldin Increasing Buyer's Premium
 

Goldin has apparently increased their buyer's premium to 22%. I agree, of course, that all bidders should be doing the math and know the full cost of their bids, so I am not claiming deception or anything here. But given that 20% is pretty standard and the proliferation of auctions and auction houses should in theory make competition more intense, is anyone surprised that Goldin is raising, rather than lowering the buyer's premium? Do we think other auction houses are likely to follow? Does anyone expect this to hurt Goldin at all?

Buyer's Premium only matters to sellers [and very uneducated buyers], so would imagine this would impact their ability to get good material for upcoming auctions.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past, that I remember 15% BP being the standard. Then someone went to the unheard-of 20% BP, and we thought it would impact their ability to get consignments. Now most auction houses are at 20%.

Hopefully it stays as just being Goldin at 22%, but I fear there are other shoes to drop across the industry in the near future.....

Is this because they're having to give more juice back to their consignors to remain competitive with the other Major Auction Houses???? Could be..it's business.

What they are signaling is that unless you have really great stuff and thus the leverage to negotiate for a share of the BP, they are going to take an even bigger cut of the action.

I predict 25% will be the new standard soon.

I'll say we're trying to hold the line at 18% and no extra charge for credit card or paypal, but it's tough, because people still expect you to give back on the BP for the best stuff even though we're collecting 2-6% less in the first place.

Doesn't seem like it. Consignors pay a 5% seller's premium up to 2,500, get 0% of the buyer's premium up to 7,500, and only get a 5% cut beyond that.

At some point if you're a consignor of anything but elite cards, it doesn't make sense to give up 25 percent of the sale price to an auction house.

It's absurd. Why would anyone pay this? Just put it on ebay or send it to Probstein where he only charges 5%

Yeah, that's recent to. They're giving less juice and charging seller's premiums where they didn't used to.

Fairly recently I sent a submission of modern-ish cards I didn't really want to handle myself to the vault, to eventually auction/sell on the Goldin platform.

There was no additional sellers premium or listing fee for anything that sold over $25.00. Now that bottom level was jacked all the way up to $2500 bucks, on top of the 2% increase in the buyers premium.

So essentially, a 20% selling fee went up to a 27% selling fee, since I don't generally play in the higher end playground.

I had what was left sent back to me. I guess I'll go back to dealing with the hassle of Ebay myself.

I understand them not wanting to handle that stuff. They probably discovered they didn't have enough incentive to inventory, store, handle and ship out the cheaper cards in their weekly auctions.

I guarantee you that if I walk in with a T206 Wagner that number is 100% negotiable.

We are still very much in the FOMO phase of card buying. I think it will depend on how much of an influx of new money continues into the hobby. 22% may be sticky. You may also see a tiered % at some point.

Lol. Yes, Probstein is the answer. Lol.

Or a complete T-Rex skull.

Or any number of other items.

I get why they are doing it. Hot market. I was in the market for a new car earlier this year and wanted to go electric and take advantage of the tax rebate. In the two weeks I contemplated it, the Chevy dealer jacked up the price $900 because the cars were moving and they wanted a cut of the rebate money. When the market cools, the BP will be readily negotiable. Besides, there are so many AHs now that you can get a better deal elsewhere. it's not like Goldin brings any better expertise or better marketing to bear. Frankly, their site is clunky and they run so much crap all the time that it feels like anything under six figures is just thrown out there with a pro forma description and very little effort.

And? The overwhelming majority of cards that people consign are at a much much much lower level.

Or a shark's tooth.

So the guy who proudly proclaimed on UTube that he has a 9 figure bank account feels he has to squeeze consignors and buyers for another 2%. Despite what Gordon Geko said, greed is ugly.

Got to up the buyer's premium when you have to hire more hands for cards to be holdin'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPiALa0CIMc


Brian

Goldin Auctions is under common ownership now with PSA/CU. The decision may be coming from that level.

I am not really too bothered by the increase in BP since you can always factor that into your bidding. However, I am fairly annoyed that Goldin needs to receive your payment within 6 days of their auction ending or that they will hit you with an additional 3% late fee. If you send payment through snail mail the next day, there's a good chance that it won't even arrive in 6 days. This was for Goldin's recent Elite 200 auction that ended on Sept 13th, and the invoices came late that night. The due date was set at Sept 20th. To be fair to Goldin, I did call their office to discuss this, and they said that they could withdraw the late fee if I needed more time. The other thing I complained to them about was that their shipping/insurance fee of 0.9% of purchase price +$19 ended up being nearly 3 times the shipping price of my Memory Lane winnings for a comparable amount, which I thought was significantly too high. They said they could not do anything about that, however.

I buy records from an English auction house and their BP is 25% or 28%+ for those that get charged VAT.

Why not? The major auctions have no shortage of material. Capitalize on the market.

Agreed. After paying $200 million (I'm not sure if that figure is accurate) for the AH in 2021 at the top of the market, CU may be squeezing Mr Goldin to become more profitable to justify their investment.
I think an organically grown auction house that has lower expenses and no investors to answer to may have a market advantage moving forward.

Brockelman Auctions fits the bill, with a buyer's premium of 15% and NO seller's premium on consignments. Scott should be getting more of our business folks.

brianp(arker)-beme

In regard to Goldin's BP influence / impact on other AH's, I would bet it will be a case of "monkey see, monkey do." Just watch . . .

Thanks Brian!

Apparently the word is getting out, the auction opening later this month will have over 1,100 lots.

Goldin takes credit cards for an additional 3% fee so their BP is at 25% if one pays that way.

They are just passing the CC fee on to the buyer instead of eating it themselves.

OK, just got another e-mail from them stating that graded cards from the vault, are still at a 0% sellers commission, though buyers premium is still going up to 22%. $5 listing fee now applies for any card that sells below $50 now, instead of the previous 15 or 20 bucks or so...which I totally understand.

Not a huge deal, but wish they would have made that clearer with the earlier e-mail.

I hope they use the money to improve the website and search / sort function.

I won a shirt in today's Hunt live auction. They are still at 17.5%.

Every buyer's premium increase only hurts the seller.

I'm surprised they even take cards under $100 or so honestly. They're making next to nothing on cheap cards.

As to the rate hike, I am assuming they did it because they think they're the big dogs now because of the Netflix show. It probably has brought them more business, so they're trying to meet the increased demand with higher pricing. Whether that turns out to be a wise decision or not though remains to be seen.

He's not making the decisions, he doesn't own the company.

One of the things I absolutely love about dealing with REA is this:

This standardized fee schedule is $10 per invoice valued at less than $500;
$15 per invoice valued between $500 and $999;
$20 per invoice valued between $1,000 and $2,499;
$25 per invoice valued between $2,500 and $4,999;
$35 per invoice valued between $5,000 and $9,999;
$40 per invoice valued between $10,000 and $19,999;
$50 per invoice valued between $20,000 and $49,999;
$75 per invoice valued between $50,000 and $74,999;
$85 per invoice valued between $75,000 and $99,999;
$100 per invoice valued between $100,000 and $249,999; and
$150 per invoice valued at greater than $250,000.

My first (last?) Goldin invoice was nearly 2x with shipping.

Having recently moved and selling some art and furniture through heritage and others, the other categories at auction are all way higher, 25-30% and they charge moving and handling fees. I didnt have enough dollars to negotiate much, though I did get the sellers fee eliminated at one place when i complained vigorously that it was ridiculous on TOP of the 27% buyers premium from my high end sports auction experience.

I agree with what others have said that it is just an auction house trying to get a larger piece of the pie from the consignor. Smart consignors will stipulate in their consignment contract the amount of points from the BP that the AUCTION HOUSE gets, not the amount that they get. That way if they were getting 7% out of 20% they would get 9% out of 22%.

Only an idiot would pay a seller's commission

How do you really feel, Jay? :D.

I completely agree that only an idiot would pay it; an imbecile or moron is too smart to fall for that. I guess all those idiots can do is work really hard at it and aspire to become an imbecile or perhaps even a moron (for the over-achievers). And just to head off the pissy emails from angry imbeciles and morons, no, I am not prejudiced against them. I have imbeciles and morons in my own family, and when I was a teenager i definitely thought my father was an idiot. Anyone who'd get bent out of shape about it is a cretin.

Buy has been replaced by bye bye.

This made me chuckle.

I believe that with the industrialization of the larger AH's, the smaller guys like Scott B. are vital to success of the hobby. He may not have the depth of offerings like the giants but there should be a place for him. I know I always find a couple of items in his auctions I bid on, and if there is a problem, he is always quick to fix it, unlike, say, Ebay which is like pulling teeth.

Yes, REA always has very reasonable shipping fees. Memory Lane is similar:

• Invoice price Zero - $500.00 = $15.00 shipping
• Invoice price $501.00 - $2,000.00 = $25.00 shipping
• Invoice price $2,001.00 - $5,000.00 = $35.00 shipping
• Invoice price $5,001.00 - $10,000.00 = $50.00 shipping
• Invoice price $10,001.00 - $15,000.00 = $100.00 shipping
• Invoice price $15,001.00 - $50,000.00 = $125.00 shipping
• Invoice price $50,001.00 and above $150.00 shipping

Christies is still the worst when it comes to shipping fees, however. I remember I won a single 8x10 photo from them, which cost ~$1400 after BP, and the shipping charge was $140, which was basically 10% of my purchase price. Granted, they did ship my photo to me very securely as if I won a Picasso painting. Christies also had a 25% BP.

I tried to argue with Goldin that their sister company PSA has much more reasonable shipping fees as follows (for 1-8 items):

$1 -$1,000: $19
$1,001 - $5,000: $34.00
$5,001 - $15,000: $42.00
$15,001 -$25,000: $49.00
$25,001 - $50,000: $61.00
$50,001 -$75,000: $69.00
$75,001 -$100,000: $84.00
$100,001 -$150,000: $125.00
$150,001 - $200,000: $136.00

That argument got nowhere. I really wonder if Goldin is trying to make the shipping fees so high in order to convince folks to just send their winnings to the Goldin vault so that they will consign to Goldin when they want to sell.

With the new higher fees would someone please explain to me why anyone would consign to Goldin rather than REA, HA, LOTG, Memory Lane or a lot of other auction houses. This is a legitimate question. I just don't see why this will net them more money. I would think that this would cost them consignors and they will actually net less. Do they have bidders that others don't? Do they have a better platform than others? Thanks for any input.

I think Gary nailed it: they are trying to force people into their vault/consignment network by offering a discount if you deliver your stuff into their clutches directly. If you sell immediately, great. If you store it there, the fees will be coming, so also great.

Their platform is...quirky.

One word.

"Netflix"


The casual collector, inheritees, and athletes who have accumulated lots of stuff but don't have a collectors mentality will go with the guy who flies around on private jets and gets world record prices (according to a television show they saw).

Unfortunately, ouchingly true. He is the updated version of Mr. Mint.


brianp(arker)-beme