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!