LiveAuctioneers is a New York-based online auction aggregator that hosts live and timed auctions for hundreds of auction houses internationally. Launched in 2002, it is one of the principal aggregator platforms in the English-language auction market alongside Invaluable, the Saleroom and Bidsquare, and it has been a significant channel for jewellery and other decorative-arts auctions to reach a global online bidder population since the early days of internet-mediated auction bidding.

Operating model

The platform operates on a principle of integrated cataloguing and bidding. Participating auction houses upload their catalogues to LiveAuctioneers, set their sale dates and conditions, and the platform handles the online bidder registration, the live-streaming of the saleroom, and the parallel online bidding interface. Bidders register once with LiveAuctioneers and bid across hundreds of houses through a single account. The platform charges an additional buyer's premium on top of the auction house's buyer's premium, typically of 5 per cent of hammer, although this varies by auction house arrangement.

The jewellery offer

For the jewellery trade LiveAuctioneers carries a wide range of mid-market and regional auction houses' jewellery sales, alongside some of the more specialist houses. Major international houses such as Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips generally run their own bidding platforms rather than use LiveAuctioneers, although they sometimes appear there. The platform's particular strength is in regional and specialist auctioneers - estate auctions, country houses' jewellery and silver sales, and mid-tier American jewellery auctions - many of which have substantial online bidder pools that they would not be able to reach through their own infrastructure.

Buyer considerations

Buyers using LiveAuctioneers should remember that the platform aggregates rather than originates, and that the underlying auction house's catalogue descriptions, terms of sale, and condition statements remain the controlling source for any given lot. The aggregator platform's role is logistical rather than expert. Authenticity and condition issues are the responsibility of the consigning auction house, and a buyer concerned about either should communicate directly with the auction house, request additional photography or condition reports, and where appropriate inspect the lot in person before committing to an online bid.

Competitive landscape

The aggregator market has seen significant consolidation in the past decade. Invaluable, owned by AAR Partners since 2017, is the largest competitor; the Saleroom, owned by Auction Technology Group, is the principal UK-focused alternative; and Bidsquare focuses on US-tier auction houses. LiveAuctioneers maintains an independent operating profile and continues to be a meaningful channel for the mid-market jewellery and decorative-arts sales it has historically served.