Turners' wheels rolling on live internet auctions

Graham Roberts

Turners Auctions will hold live auctions online as internet sites such as Trade Me continue to make inroads into the car sales market.

Called "Turners Live", the service will be launched to trade customers within five weeks and rolled out across Turners' 16 nationwide public auction sites during the next three months.

It won't replace live auctions, but supplement them with web-based, real-time video and audio. People will be able to place bids from computers in competition with live bidders.

Chief executive Graham Roberts said as the country was well covered by physical sites, Turners needed to find an alternative route to expand.

"It will increase attendances, and bums on seats is what we need and that's what sells [cars]," he said.

Turners started looking at an online bidding option 18 months ago. Roberts denies the move is a reaction to competition from Trade Me.

In two years, the number of vehicles listed on Trade Me has grown from 5000 to more than 35,000.

"I guess the reason why people come here [Turners], and come back ... is the integrity of knowing who you are dealing with," Roberts said.

"What you pay us for is the sale of the car, not for the listing."

Turners said the advantages of their online service included a fast moving live sale environment, consistent information on each car, guaranteed title and the assurance of having Turners transact the deal.

Last year, about 155,000 trade and public bidders bought more than 80,000 cars through Turners.

The online option is not expected to affect physical attendances markedly and Roberts thought the total number of bidders could increase by up to 15 per cent.

Online bidders can access vehicle information, watch real-time video of the car and auctioneer, listen as the auction takes place and simply use a mouse to click on a large bid button if they wish to join the fray.

At the auction house, the auctioneer takes bids from the floor and from the internet via a computer screen, with the highest bid displayed on a large screen in yellow for an on-site bid or green for an online bid.

Although working better with a broadband internet connection, it can be used with a dial-up service.

Roberts expects the new service to give more confidence to investors. The company's share price has fallen from a high of $4.55 last February to $2.15 yesterday, as investors have become increasingly concerned about the threat posed by Trade Me.

In November, Turners slashed its profit forecast from $6.3 million to $5.4 million, blaming higher petrol prices and a softer used car market. Sales were 2.2 per cent down on the same period the previous year.

However, Roberts said the market had recovered somewhat since then.

"We saw people maybe postpone their purchase because of the shock of the oil price, but we saw them starting to come back at the end of the year."

The cost of implementing the online bidding system across all sites is about $160,000 but Roberts expects the technology to revolutionise the car auction industry.