I think I've shared this before, but the story behind BP is an interesting one.
Christie's and Sotheby's (two small auction houses nobody has heard of) were always competing for the best fine art. Of course with their respective reputations about the only way to compete was to lower commissions, which of course lowered profits. One day Christie's comes up with the brilliant idea of passing along some of the commission to the buyer's end of the transaction so that they could tell sellers "Hey we'll only charge you 20% instead of 40%" (and yes those were standard fine art numbers from those two companies back in the day) Sotheby's was trying to figure out what was going on and eventually heard from a previously loyal consignor what was going on. Knowing there's no way Christie's was suddenly halving their commissions they found out about this new-fangled "buyer's premium" and instantly instituted one themselves re-leveling the playing field.
It was done 100% to get consignments, no other reason. It might have had the side benefit in early days of some surprised bidders, but when you're talking million dollar art, I'm pretty sure the buyers are fairly savvy.
I'd love to charge no BP but I'd have to do a LOT of fast explaining to a potential consignor as to why I want 30 - 40% commission but the other guys only want 10 -15% and I would lose a TON of consignments that I now get.
Once a niche market accepts the practice it becomes very hard to buck the trend
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