The Auctioneer's Screen: A Guide for Auctioneers

Introduction

Auctioneering is a difficult job, particularly in today’s internet age. Gone are the halcyon days of only having to look at people raising their hands for bidding in the saleroom. Now there is technology to contend with, and with it different screens to focus on as well as keeping an eye on a few trusty room bidders.

It all sounds like hard work. Thankfully, we’ve made the process as simple as we possibly can, so when using Snoofa Live, most of the work is done by the computer or the clerk.

Set up

Your main focus should be the Snoofa Live auctioneer’s screen. More about how that looks below. This is where you will see all of the absentee bids and online bids, along with useful lot descriptions and images.

You may choose to use third party bidding platforms in addition to Snoofa Live on your website. If this is the case, there will likely be an additional auctioneer’s screen for each of the platforms used. These screens will only show the bids captured on that particular platform, and not any other bids. Your Snoofa Live clerk will record the bids on these third party sites as a ‘room’ bid (green).

️ Absentee/Commission Bids

• If a bidder has placed an absentee bid before the lot begins, then it will show up on the auctioneer’s screen, under Absentee Bids on the right hand of the screen.

• The highest absentee bid is always given preference. If there are two absentee bids at the same value, the first bid placed will be given preference.

• Absentee bids are automatically executed. Each time a bid is placed against the absentee, such as by a room or online bidder, the system will automatically jump the bid up to the next increment above, until the absentee has been exceeded.

• You can’t preference other bids over the absentee. Whilst an absentee bid is still in play, other bidders can’t be prioritised. The absentee has to be outbid for other bidders to be ‘winning.’

Auctioneer’s Sheets

• Do all absentee bids show on the paper auctioneer’s sheets?

  • We show the top two absentee bids for every lot on the sheets

  • All of these absentee bids placed up until the moment the auctioneer’s sheets were printed will show on the sheets

• Any bids placed after the sheets are printed will not be on the sheets, but will show on the auctioneer’s screen

• It is possible to ‘turn off’ absentee bids when the auction starts, but this has the downside of clients not being able to bid on upcoming lots during the sale

• Sections of the sheets can be printed at a time, to try and keep them as up-to-date as possible

• There is a handy date and time stamp at the bottom of each sheet, so you can see whether they were recently generated

• It is not necessary to record hammer prices and paddle numbers on the sheets if you prefer not to, as the system captures most of these and the auction clerk can record room paddles, but it is always good to have a back up in case the clerk misses a room paddle

Diagram of the Screen

Using the Screen

Watch the short clip below to better understand how the auctioneer’s screen functions.

The Bid Colour Transitions

As demonstrated in the clip above, the current bid section of the auctioneer’s screen will show a different colour, depending on which channel the bid is currently with e.g. online, room. Here is an explanation of channels the different colours refer to.

None: There is no bid	Absentee: The bid is with the highest absentee bidder	Room: The bid is with a room bidder	Online 1: The bid is with an online bidder	Online 2: The bid is with a different online bidder. There are two colours for online to differentiate between competing bids.

Launching the Auctioneer’s Screen

It’s very easy to launch the auctioneer’s (and other live bidding) screens.

• Select the relevant auction from the Auctions area of the main menu

• Click Launch DAR on the Dashboard

• Select Auctioneer’s Screen from the pop-up