The Art Market’s Shift Online Determines the Need for a New Auctions’ Aggregator

Examining the opportunities for the post-covid Art Market, MADE IN BED magazine met Lot-Art, the global art search engine and investment advisory platform.

On May 19th, a significant milestone was reached as Sotheby’s held its first online Impressionist & Modern Art sale. The auction, online-only due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, generated a turnover of nearly $10 million, a record for an online auction. The participation of international collectors was high, with buyers from over 30 countries and each lot (113 in total) contested by an average of 3.5 bidders. According to the auction house, 29% of buyers had never participated in a Sotheby's auction before.

This number is very significant, as it could indicate that the shift to online sales, necessary in times of pandemic, might actually be a positive thing for the art market in terms of client acquisition and conversion.

Giorgio Morandi’s Natura Morta realised $1.6 million: the highest price for any lot sold in an online sale at Sotheby's; Source: Sotheby's

The online art market is following a steady growth path, yet it still faces challenges that prevent it from expanding. Among them are the lack of trust by some collectors that are hesitant on buying collectible items without physically inspecting them first.

Another challenge is the high number of online players in the art world. From auction houses, to galleries, to art marketplaces, many options exist nowadays for trading art. While the proliferation of these platforms is a positive thing for the market and for price transparency, it might represent a challenge for collectors in terms of navigation and complexity.

AUCTIONS AGGREGATORS AS A SOLUTION

Auctions aggregators are websites that collect and compile data from different auction platforms and make it available in one place. They allow users to compare purchasing opportunities and prices of items offered by different auction houses and art marketplaces. Auction aggregators generally follow two models:

• Aggregators incorporating a bidding platform. For instance, LiveAuctioneers offers the possibility to conduct transactions on its website by hosting thousands of auctions in real time online, allowing access to remote sales and the possibility to scout for opportunities.
  
  
• Aggregators operating as linking platforms, by redirecting users to auction houses and galleries, such as Lot-Art.

In looking more into Lot-Art, the art investment platform provides collectors with catalogues of upcoming sales listed by auction houses located worldwide. The founder of the platform, CEO Francesco Gibbi, being a seasoned collector himself, created it with the intention of building an effective tool to easily screen the global art market and to immediately identify the best investment deals.

Concerned about the need for more transparency and efficiency in the art trade, Francesco officially launch the company in 2017, together with CTO Milan Madar. They could have never imagined that the platform would encounter such great success: Today, Lot-Art counts more than 340.000 users worldwide.

Currently, conscious of the pandemic’s consequences on the art market, Lot-Art supports sellers by allowing them to list their catalogues on the platform for free. Through its Art Investment Advisory service, Lot-Art assists collectors in acquiring best deals at at auctoin by guaranteeing a high level of price transparency and information availability.

The mission of Lot-Art is to enhance the role of fine art investment as an effective portfolio diversification to the financial market. According to Francesco Gibbi: “Lot-Art combines big data analytics, market expertise and AI to assist investors in acquiring quality artworks which are also sound financial investments, assuring the asset will carry the highest degree of liquidity and opportunity of return by exploiting the geographical arbitrages and information asymmetries arising in the global art market”.

The company is already exploring further developments, as the founder also announced the launch of new dedicated services to art collectors such as providing analytic market insights to help them make informed investment decisions in art and luxury assets. The new services are expected to launch in September 2020.

During and after pandemic times, macroeconomic factors, such as inflation, unemployment and forex volatility, will inevitably affect financial markets. The advantage of investing in art as an asset class is, on one side, to protect the investor from such factors and on the other, to gain a higher personal reward related to the history, the aesthetic beauty and the prestige of ownership of a precious artwork or luxury asset, such as watches or classic cars.

Considering the inevitable online shift of the art market due to the global pandemic, auction aggregators represent a great opportunity: through their services, they add an indisputable value to the art market by facilitating discovery, price transparency and transactions, as reflected by the positive growth of the online auction industry.

LOT-ART SERVICES FOR COLLECTORS

Saved-Searches and Personalized Alerts: Save all your keywords to quickly run your favorite searches in a single click. At your discretion, we can then send you email alerts when new lots matching your saved-searches are available, so you will always have the most updated overview of the art market. Be the first to know when your favourite lots are for sale with customized alerts! On the page header click on "My Searches" -> "Create New Search".

Art Investment Advisory: proposing a financial approach to art collecting, Lot-Art offers a synergic cluster of tools for optimal investment decision-making in art-related assets. Lot-Art can help you selecting artworks & luxury collectables with the highest degree of liquidity and opportunity of return. This service will best serve privates and institutions who wish to invest in art as an asset class but don’t have the expertise to unveil and select the best deals in the global art market, Download the Art Investment brochure.

Valuate & Sell: you can appraise for FREE the value of your art & collectibles with the purpose of selling at auction. Disclose the monetary value of your assets, request a free valuation »

Buy Now: Lot-Art has added, aside to auctions browsing, the opportunity to search artworks and luxury collectibles from trusted private collectors, artists and galleries. If you are not yet acquainted with the thrill of bidding at auction you can just buy selected artworks and luxury assets in perfect relax proposing your offer through the Lot-Art Gallery.

Multi-Search: enter unlimited multi-keyword searches at once; you can then choose to browse through all the lots results at once or flick through each set of results individually. For example enter several keywords like "Rolex, Piaget, Patek Philippe ", they will be searched simultaneously to give you all the results you need at once. Run your favorite searches in 1 click and receive alerts about new items matching your saved searches.

Wish List: Save your preferred lots in your Wish List to access them quickly, before and after the auction. We can also send you a reminder to place your bid on time one day before the auction date, so you will never miss a sale again! Your Wish List is also a perfect tool to catalogue all your purchases: to record the date, location and sale price of the items in your collection.

Sold & Aftersale: LOT – ART offers the opportunity to search through unsold auction lots in the Aftersale section. Use it to directly get in touch with the auction house if you are interested in negotiating a purchase. In our Sold Section, you will find historical price information recorded at auction, a useful indication of the actual value of an item you could rely on before finalizing your bid.

Catalogue Search: Browse catalogues by auction house and location clicking on "AUCTIONS" in the homepage header. The filters on the left-hand side (Desktop & Tablet) and the top icon (Mobile) can help you adjust your searches.

LOT-ART | The Art Investment Platform