Art auctions: Going once, going twice, going online

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UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

The brawl begins

Fly Title: 

Art auctions

Rubric: 

Online auctions are changing the art market but not yet upending it

Location: 

NEW YORK

Main image: 

20160130_wbp503.jpg

EVERYONE seems to agree that online auctions are important to the art world’s future. In 2013 Daniel Loeb, an activist investor, seethed over Sotheby’s “inability to even develop a coherent plan for an internet-sales strategy, much less implement one.” Sotheby’s has worked to remedy that, for example by joining forces with eBay and holding five online-only auctions last year. Christie’s holds its own online sales. Add a swarm of startups, and there seem to be ever more web auctioneers selling ever more art. But the ways in which online auctions are not changing art sales are as interesting as the ways in which they are.
Sales of art online reached €3.3 billion (.6 billion) in 2014, about 6% of all worldwide sales, …
Source: Retailing
Art auctions: Going once, going twice, going online