Art and Online Auctions have been bitter enemies since before the Hatfields and McCoys. Why? Well Art felt like it wasn’t getting enough exposure on the auction and there wasn’t enough detail to get top dollar.
Some auction managers have done a good job of selling art online strictly because they were willing to forgo page load time for a large stack of very large images to get the detail necessary to sell a piece of art. A good example has always been www.iGavelAuctions.com. Art dealers online for many years, iGavel has mastered the use of good photography and large images to sell art online successfully, but they are the exception that proves the rule.
AuctionAnything.com took the achievements of iGavel and focused on how to help the rest of our clients capture the same level of success. The result of this research is our new image slide show. It seems simple on the surface as just one of those things you expect an auction service has until you realize they don’t. AuctionAnything.com has had a slide show utility and a click to see larger image utility for years, but like most sites, they were still a bit short of what auction sites needed to take it a step further.
But why? Part of the problem was that people wanted to upload extremely large file size images and between bandwidth and file loader technology, this took forever. In the fall, AuctionAnything.com released a new image upload utility that got rid of the upload time problem. In fact for this article, I uploaded 4 files with a total file size of more than 2mB in less than 30 seconds.
The second problem was that people were uploading unoptimized images, this meant that a file which could be 50k in size was 500k so it wasted bandwidth each time a page loaded. The new image upload utility addressed that issue as well.
With image problems out of the way, AuctionAnything.com could focus on creating a better user experience. The result is a new image slide show utility. While there are several aspects to this upgrade, we will focus on the piece that is most engaging. Take a look at a sample listing I created to illustrate the process. Example.
Click on the images and watch your screen get flooded with the colors, detail and beauty that a full screen image can provide you. Don’t worry about screen size, the slide show utility monitors that and only shows the image large enough to fit your screen, plus you can page through the images from the overlay and see all of the imagery that is going to sell your items for their highest price possible.
The rest is up to you. We have given you the tools, now grab that camera and get detailed images. Show every scuff, brush stroke, unique detail or blemish necessary to sell your piece.
In other news, Art and Online Auction have agreed to a truce and are looking forward to working together more often.
