John Pye Auctions is committed to making the buying and selling process as transparent and accessible as possible for everyone. As such, we believe that the ‘open ascending price’ auction is the best way to achieve this goal.

We pride ourselves in ‘knowing auctions’ like no-one else. This core foundation has helped propel us in becoming the UK’s leading commercial auction house network. By fusing traditional auction principles with modern technology, we consistently gain the best returns for our clients with a demonstratable uplift in comparison to their previous routes to market.

Public Auctions and Your Personal Account

Our auctions have always been open to the public, but we realised that to enable us to reach even more buyers and sellers, we needed to expand our auction gateway. In 2008, we began trialling the first online-only auctions, previously our auctions had been traditional live physical auctions with an Auctioneer and an Auctioneer’s Assistant present. We were the first auctioneer to make the decision to move to a fully online offering and it was a great success. By 2013, we became the first UK auction house to launch online property auctions.

Through our online auctions, we provide accessibility for all bidders to set up a watch list in their account to track items across multiple auctions. They can also place maximum bids in advance of the auction ending and will receive notifications if their highest bid has been beaten, offering them the opportunity to increase their bids.

All Auctions Online

Now all our auctions are held exclusively online, with bidding available 24 hours a day, enabling us to reach more bidders and with the auctions running over several days. Our 750,000+ registered bidders combined with online accessible multi day auctions greatly increases returns for our clients. In 2022 we held over 650 online auctions held across our UK sites and when required, some third-party premises. With viewings available, enabling customers to check the goods in person.

Frequent Auctions

Our auctions run at different times depending on the site and saleroom they are hosted in, these times are always listed online along with the sale. Viewing in person is available on nearly all our auctions giving customers the opportunity to view the actual goods before making a bid. However, most of our customers are happy to use our high-resolution photos and descriptions to evaluate the item on sale before making their bids. We currently have 750,000+ registered bidders, an increase of 49% since 2020 and this figure continues to grow, giving your goods maximum exposure.

Anti Sniping – 3 Minute Rule

Our bidding platform is bespoke to John Pye Auctions, built in-house by our team of developers. The auction software system features a unique ‘3-minute-bidding rule’, which mirrors the behaviour of a traditional Auctioneer. If at least two competing parties are engaged in bidding on any particular Lot, in the last 3 minutes before the scheduled deadline, the online auction bidding for that Lot will increase another 3 minutes and incrementally every 3 minutes until no further competing bids have been lodged. This can increase the hammer price and returns for our clients and eliminates the use of ‘sniper bidding’ tools.

If you have any questions or would like to know more, contact our Business Development team at business.development@johnpye.co.uk