MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! OUR NEW EVERY FOUR WEEK AUCTIONS START IN SLIGHTLY
OVER TWO MONTHS, ON JULY 13TH!
We are switching from bi-weekly auctions (after the last one ends on
July 11),to our all-new ONCE EVERY FOUR WEEK AUCTIONS, which we feel
certain will prove to be FAR BETTER than the old bi-weekly auctions,
just as the bi-weekly auctions have proved to be a giant improvement
over the earlier weekly ones!
Note that even though the auctions start FOUR weeks apart, they run
for THREE weeks each! This will give us one week after each set of
auctions close to get all the items packed, invoiced and shipped, and
then, one week later, the new auctions will begin, and close 3 weeks
later, and then the process starts all over again!
WHY AM I MAKING THIS CHANGE? Several reasons!
1) After 31 years of auctioning (and 1,766,115 unique auctions!), I
have found that is it great to "slow down the pace" of our auctions.
Yes, it helped a LOT when we changed to bi-weekly auctions from weekly
auctions sixteen months ago (mostly it has given us a chance to almost
completely catch up on all old consignments), but preparing 3,500 or
so auctions every two weeks is still stressful, and I feel that now
having auctions every four weeks will give us the perfect balance (not
too often, not too infrequent).
2) When we changed to bi-weekly auctions from weekly auctions, I
quickly saw a GIGANTIC added benefit to having far fewer auctions. I
could FINALLY enforce my rule that single sale auction items have a
minimum realistic retail value of $20 each (not that we stopped
auctioning sub-$20 items, but rather that they are now in bulk lots
instead of in single auctions. GREATLY REDUCING THE NUMBER OF SUB-$20
ITEMS HAS MADE OUR REGULAR AUCTIONS FAR MORE INTERESTING TO ALL THE
BIDDERS (and it has had the great added side benefit of making the
bulk lots FAR more interesting as well (as more and more of them
contain interesting $10 to $20 items)! Now, with having even fewer
auctions every four weeks, I will finally be able to COMPLETELY
enforce my "single sale auction items have a minimum realistic retail
value of $20 each" rule, which will make all our auctions so much
better than before!
3) I suspect many of you bidders are still getting worn on from having
to check 999 or more auctions three times every OTHER WEEK, and I
strongly suspect you will not mind having more of a break between
auctions (just as so many people have told me they prefer the
bi-weekly auctions over the old weekly ones, for that same reason; how
did any of us keep checking new auctions every two or three days for
decades?).
SO THAT IS HOW I ARRIVED AT THE NEW EVERY FOUR WEEKLY AUCTIONS! Here
are the pluses:
1) As stated above, this gives you bidders far more "breathing room"
between auctions than you had with our weekly auctions, and also with
our bi-weekly auctions. We won't have ANY auctions closing three out
of four weeks! Imagine how happy your spouses, children, or
significant others will be to learn that they can once again do
something with you on three out of four Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Sundays!
Remember that back in 1990, when the modern era of this hobby
began with my very first Christie's auction, most collectors and
dealers had only TWO major events a year to look forward to, the
annual Christie's auction in December, and the annual Cinevent on
Memorial Day. Not only did collectors and dealers manage to deal with
this, but they also mostly traveled to both! So having 13 weeks of
three auctions each every year (that you don't have to leave home for)
is still an awful LOT more than that was!
2) They allow me to catch up on many projects that I have never had
time to do, both at work and at home. That is a big plus for me! The
number one goal is to get every single old consignment auctioned, so
that we are SOLELY auctioning what has just arrived! THOSE OF YOU WHO
CONSIGN WILL SEND YOUR CONSIGNMENTS THIS MONTH, AND THEY WILL BE
AUCTIONED THE VERY NEXT MONTH, AND YOU WILL BE PAID THE NEXT MONTH
AFTER THAT! SO A TOTAL OF 60 TO 90 DAYS FROM YOU SENDING YOUR
CONSIGNMENTS TO YOU RECEIVING PAYMENT FOR ALL YOU SENT!
3) They allow me to take off a week here and there, without it
affecting eMoviePoster.com at all, all year round if I want, because
we will have 13 sets of auctions each year, four weeks apart. I have
five children, and four now live away from home, and I want the
freedom to visit them more, and to take trips all over the world!
Is there ANY downside to this? I don't think there will be any, other
than that everyone will need a little time to get used to the new
schedule, but I really feel that once everyone adjusts, they will all
say, "I wished you had done this years ago"!
Here is the best part of it, one you might not immediately think of.
YOU MIGHT SAY "I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO WAIT FOUR WEEKS BETWEEN
AUCTIONS", BUT ACTUALLY, YOU MAY WELL FIND YOU ARE WAITING SHORTER
TIMES RATHER THAN LONGER TIMES! What wizardry is that? It is because
under our bi-weekly schedule, we only auctioned each type of item
every two or three months. So if you like say, window cards, you might
only see them at auction every three months or so.
BUT NOW, THERE WILL BE WINDOW CARDS EVERY FOUR WEEKS! That is
because each of the "every four week" auctions will contain ALL of
each size that we were consigned the previous month! Now of course
this means there might be 50 windows cards this time, and 200 next
time, and then 100 the time after that, but you will see EVERY type
and size of item every four weeks!
And here is the biggest change, which I alluded to above. With far
fewer auctions, we will no longer have the time to auction low value
items individually. So starting in July, ABSOLUTELY all items we are
consigned that realistically sell for under $20 each will be placed in
bulk lots (or returned to consignors). And each bulk lot itself also
has to realistically sell for $20 each.
So if someone consigns ten $2 items to us, we will make a single
bulk lot out of them, even if they are all different kinds of items.
And if they send twenty $5 items, we would at most make them into five
bulk lots, but more likely just one or two. But of course we will
also offer to return the items to that person. BUT ABSOLUTELY ALL
ITEMS THAT ARE SENT TO US THAT REALISTICALLY SELL FOR $20 OR MORE WILL
CONTINUE TO BE AUCTIONED INDIVIDUALLY!
So please remember that we absolutely WON'T be stopping auctioning low
priced items! It is just that we will be auctioning them ONLY in bulk
lots, and NOT in single item auctions. And since I am hoping to do 999
bulk lots every other month (instead of our current 500-600), we can
also actually auction more sub-$20 items a year than we did when we
had bi-weekly or weekly auctions, except they will be in bulk lots.
And one final change. We will have FIVE Major Auctions in 2020, as
opposed to the SEVEN we had last year (that was fun, and led to our
first $6 million dollar year, but unbelievably hectic!). AND YOU WILL
NOTICE FROM THE ABOVE SCHEDULE THAT THE MAJOR AUCTIONS ARE NOW HELD ON
ONE DAY, RATHER THAN SPREAD OVER THREE AUCTIONS. This means that more
than ever, we will reserve the major auctions for truly rare and
desirable items (which will both make them even stronger than before,
and also make our non-major auctions that much stronger as well)!
I will expand on all of the above over the coming weeks. I know this
news seems like a big change (and in some ways it is, and some ways it
isn't) but it won't start for over two months. Just as I was certain
the switch to bi-weekly auctions was a big plus for eMoviePoster.com,
I am just as certain the switch to every four week auctions is just as
big a plus! Take some time and think about it, and if you have
thoughts you want to share, please email me, because, as you know, I
have always run this business by listening to the feedback I get from
our bidders, our buyers, our consignors, and my employees!
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