gimmeauctions.com enters Internet auction calendar fray

gimmeauctions.com

We received a press release yesterday regarding www.gimmeauctions.com, a new Internet auction calendar. We immediately followed up with a couple of questions for Mr. Roberts, and the questions and responses are posted below. Here’s the release.

Jordan Roberts, Manager of GimmeAuctions.com announces the launching of a new website serving auction attendees of all ages. The site is designed for those who attend auctions of any kind — estate, antique, equipment, household, real estate, farm and more.

Salem, OH – May 20, 2010 — Those looking to attend auctions can quickly view upcoming auctions, search for specific items, visit photo galleries and receive maps and directions to area auctions. “With these features and more, GimmeAuctions.com is doing things no other auction website does,” states Roberts.

“We constructed this site with the idea of bringing auctioneers and auction attendees together through more than just traditional online advertising means. GimmeAuctions.com reveals itself as a community for auction attendees — a social network that allows people to interact with each other and keep tabs on their favorite auctioneers.” Users of the site can comment on pending auctions and even ask questions directly to auctioneers. Additionally, they can follow their favorite auctioneers and receive notification of newly created auction postings.

The site is free to auctioneers who post advertisements and to those wishing to view them. No registration is necessary to view auctions online, but users who do register will have more enhanced features at their disposal.

Here are our questions and the responses.

AuctioneerTech: Posting auction inventories on websites is a lot of work. What benefit does gimmeauctions.com offer an auctioneer over the other established auction calendar systems like Global Auction Guide and AuctionZIP? Do you support any of the auction calendar syndication APIs?

Jordan Roberts: GimmeAuctions.com was built knowing the ever increasing marketing workload of auctioneers.  With that in mind we made submitting auctions on our site is as easy as possible, but along with ease of use we wanted to offer more.  We designed a one-page auction submission with features unlike other auction website.  Two features on submission that come to mind are:

Multi-day auction support. If an auctioneer has a weekly auction every Wednesday for 6 months, they only have to submit a listing for the sale once and set it to repeat weekly on Wednesdays. It’s that easy.

Quick Image Handling.  Our system scans the filenames of the uploaded images and titles the uploaded images accordingly.  If the filenames are not correct the auctioneer may also use our image details editor to quickly add a title and description to each of their uploaded images.

Take a look at our guide How to List Auctions on GimmeAuctions.com for more details on submitting auctions.

We also realized that not only is it important to have solid features for auctioneers, it is equally as important to cater to the auction attendees. Some other auction websites don’t provide, or in some cases charge the auction attendees a fee for, basic features like a Personal Auction Listing, Notifications of New Auctions, and Saved Searches.  GimmeAuctions.com has those features and more, but we provide them for free to the user.  Making the auction attendee’s features an equal priority to the auctioneers is a win-win.

Our staff is currently looking to into some APIs of auction calendar sites, but none have been implemented yet.  We will keep you posted.

AT: Your press release describes gimmeauctions.com as “a social network that allows people to interact with each other and keep tabs on their favorite auctioneers.” We all suffer from social fatigue. How can you justify the extra effort involved in maintaining a presence on yet another social network when most auctioneers already have a presence on Facebook?

JR: Sites like facebook and twitter are great means to promote auction listings posted elsewhere, but they don’t do much to display them. Where GimmeAuctions.com really stands apart from the mainstream social networks is we are based primarily around auction listings. We have a niche audience interested in auctions, those who enjoy attending auctions, those who make their living attending auctions and the auctioneers themselves. With that in mind, we made many social features available to our users.  Commenting on Auctions, Following Auctioneers, Sharing Auction Listings on Mainstream Social Networks, and Emailing Listings are some of those features we currently have.

Does the world need another Internet auction calendar or social network? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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Aaron Traffas, CAI, ATS, CES

twitter.com/traffas | aarontraffas.com | aarontraffasband.com

Aaron Traffas, CAI, AMM, CES, is an auctioneer from Sharon, Kansas. For the last 22 years he's worked for Purple Wave. Aaron served as president of the Kansas Auctioneers Association in 2017 and on the National Auctioneers Association Education Institute Board of Trustees from 2009 through 2013. He is a past instructor at CAI and co-wrote the original ATS and AMM designation courses from NAA. An active contract bid caller, he has advanced to the finals in multiple state auctioneer contests. During the summer, Aaron operates a farm in south central Kansas. Aaron is an active singer and songwriter and the Aaron Traffas Band's latest music can be found at aarontraffasband.com as well as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.