Audiences, businesses quick to move online

Artworks auctioned

During the pandemic, major auction houses and galleries worldwide have switched to online sessions to continue their business.

In China, physical auctions started to resume in July, as the number of infections fell nationwide.

China Guardian, one of the country's biggest art auction houses, began its autumn season early this month, attracting sales of more than 2.32 billion yuan, a rise of 45 percent on its spring season. Some 40 percent of the lots were sold online, resulting in sales of over 300 million yuan.

For the autumn season at Beijing Poly International Auction, on-site and online buyers could bid at the same time. Online buyers made 2,000 bids and bought 245 lots, with sales reaching about 89 million yuan.

According to market research company ArtTactic, global onlineonly auction sales at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips produced sales totaling $596.7 million from January to August, a rise of 255 percent over the whole of last year.

Xie Xiaodong, founder of the art information platform Zai Art, said the rising number of online events is likely to offer new opportunities for auction houses, as buyers worldwide can make bids in cyberspace.

"Auction houses are updating bids made at physical auctions in real time and are organizing virtual auctions at the same time," Xie said.

He added that the challenge for the industry is to change perceptions and concepts. Auction houses should attach the same level of importance to online promotion as they do to offline work, he said.

For example, they should work out how to better present the appearance and details of an artwork online and ways to attract more potential bidders via livestreaming and short videos.

Xie said the development of online auctions has improved virtual services, with a greater variety of artworks being auctioned in cyberspace.

The advantages of such auctions are that they are easy to prepare and the cost of staging them is lower than for physical sales.

As auction houses rely largely on regular customers, he suggested the money they save by staging online events should be invested in customer service and content.

As an example, he said they should develop WeChat mini-programs that allow users to browse information about auction lots.