Multilingual Auction Technology

Schloss Ahlden is one of Germany’s leading fine art auctioneers. Based in Hannover, the auction house specialises in old porcelain, silver, paintings, furniture, jewellery and more. As members of the Federal Association of German Art Auctioneers since 1981, they take pride in their rapid reaction to new market trends.

They approached Auction Marketer to build them a live bidding platform of their own to include features such as:

• Video webcast.
• Post-auction offers.
• Buy it now functionality.
• Timed online only auction options.

We approached this in three phases, using our rigorous analysis and testing processes. 

Delivering the ultimate live auction experience

The first release of their new platform was a fully standalone version of the live web cast bidding platform and back office.

This included:

• A full client registration and approval module to satisfy KYC and AML5 regulations. 
• A bidder credit limit of €10,000 that's tracked in real-time against the user's current bid exposure. 

Furthermore, German and English language versions of the private label bidding solution are inplace. This provides new opportunities for Schloss Ahlden to expand its audience.

Complete control of the auction process

The second phase of the project included:

• Incorporating the live bidding system into the Auction Marketer web application. In turn, allowing the auctioneer to control the home page merchandising and content pages. 
• Offering users the ability to leave absentee bids pre-sale and post-sale offers after the sales have finished.

Following this,phase three included:

• the incorporation of online-only timed bidding, 
• buy it now functionality 
• a complete Artist Directory to help with natural search rankings. 

This comprehensive solution has allowed Schloss Ahlden to take control of their brand, their data and become independent of the aggregation platform leaders in Germany,strengthening their market position and independence.