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Moving your house to Auctionomy

A work plan for leaving a marketplace, other auction software or your old website. Each phase says what your house does, what we do, what to gather, how long it usually takes and where moves go wrong.

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The move, phase by phase

Ten phases, in the order the work happens. Several overlap: bidders, catalogue and website are usually prepared side by side.

Times are guidance to plan with, not measurements. Most of the waiting is on people and paperwork, not on the software. This page is your side of the move; Getting started describes the onboarding we run with you.

  1. 1Decide and plan

    Choose the first sale you will run on Auctionomy, and plan back from it.

    One or two conversations, over a week or so.

  2. 2Your terms, premium and increments

    The rules your house sells by, entered once and shown to every bidder.

    A day or two to find the documents. We enter them in one sitting.

  3. 3Bring your bidders

    Your bidder list in your own records, ready for them to sign in.

    An afternoon to export. Allow a day or two to tidy duplicates; the import itself takes minutes.

  4. 4Bring your catalogue and archive

    Your next sale's lots and photographs in place, and a plan for your past results.

    Depends on the number of lots. The import takes minutes; photographs take longest.

  5. 5Your website and domain

    Your website approved on a temporary address, then moved onto your own domain.

    The website is built with you over a few rounds of changes. Setting the domain records takes minutes; allow up to two days for every network to see them.

  6. 6Payments and invoicing

    Buyers pay your house directly, by bank transfer and, if you choose, by card.

    Under an hour of forms. Stripe's own checks can take longer if it asks for documents.

  7. 7Your team

    Everyone who works the sale has their own sign-in.

    Minutes to invite. An hour or so for each person to find their way around.

  8. 8A rehearsal sale

    Your auctioneer and clerk run the console once before it counts.

    A couple of hours, a week or more before the first sale.

  9. 9Your first sale

    Your first sale under your own name, on your own website.

    Your usual sale, with more attention on registrations in the days before it.

  10. 10After the move

    The old system closed properly, and your bidders finding you on your own site.

    The weeks after the first sale.

Each phase in full

1Decide and plan

Choose the first sale you will run on Auctionomy, and plan back from it.

Time to allowOne or two conversations, over a week or so.

What your house does

  • Pick the first sale. A regular sale of a size your team knows well is a better first sale than the most important one of your year.
  • Name one person at the house who owns the move and answers our questions.
  • Read your current contract for its notice period, any exclusivity, and what it lets you export and when.
  • Write down where everything lives today: bidders, catalogues, photographs, terms, the website and the domain.

What we do

  • Agree the plan with you: the first sale's date and, working back from it, when each phase below needs to be done.
  • Show you Auctionomy on a catalogue like yours, so the plan is made against the real thing.

To gather

  • Your sales calendar for the next few months
  • Your current contract or terms with the marketplace or software provider
  • A list of who at the house uses which system today

Watch for

  • A notice period that ends after the sale you picked. Check it before the date is fixed.
  • Planning the domain change or the first sale for the week of a busy sale.

2Your terms, premium and increments

The rules your house sells by, entered once and shown to every bidder.

Time to allowA day or two to find the documents. We enter them in one sitting.

What your house does

  • Find the current version of each document, not the one on an old website.
  • Decide anything your old system decided for you, such as how the premium is taxed.

What we do

  • Enter your conditions of sale, buyer's premium, increment table, tax and categories.
  • Publish your terms on your website. Bidders accept them when they register with your house.

To gather

  • Conditions of sale, and any separate terms for bidding online
  • Buyer's premium: one rate, or the bands and their rates
  • Whether tax is charged on the premium, and at what rate
  • Your increment table
  • Your departments or categories
  • Currency, time zone, address, opening hours and contact details

Watch for

  • Terms that name the marketplace, its bidding process or its payment service. They need rewording before bidders accept them on your site.
  • A premium that was quoted inclusive of a marketplace's own surcharge. Your premium is now only yours.

3Bring your bidders

Your bidder list in your own records, ready for them to sign in.

Time to allowAn afternoon to export. Allow a day or two to tidy duplicates; the import itself takes minutes.

What your house does

  • Export your bidders from wherever they are kept today: your own software, a spreadsheet, a marketplace export, or a printed list.
  • Bring the bidders who are yours to bring. If you are unsure what a marketplace's export includes or allows, ask it before you plan around it.
  • Write to your bidders yourself, from the address they already know: where your sales are now, that they create an account once, and the date of the first sale.

What we do

  • Import the list into your customer records by spreadsheet, or enter a printed one with you.
  • Give you the links for your letter, and check that signing up works from them before you send it.

To gather

  • One row per bidder, with an email address for each
  • Name, as one field
  • Telephone
  • Address: street (two lines), town or city, postcode, country

Watch for

  • Passwords do not come across from any system. Each bidder creates an account on your website with the same email address, and their record is already there.
  • The same person twice under two email addresses, or two people sharing one. Records are matched on email, so tidy these first.
  • Writing to bidders before your website is ready for them to sign up.

4Bring your catalogue and archive

Your next sale's lots and photographs in place, and a plan for your past results.

Time to allowDepends on the number of lots. The import takes minutes; photographs take longest.

What your house does

  • Export or assemble the next sale's lots as a spreadsheet, one row per lot.
  • Collect the photographs at full size, named or foldered by lot number.
  • Decide what happens to your past catalogues and results.

What we do

  • Import the lots into the sale, and check categories, estimates and reserves came through as you meant them.
  • Add the photographs to each lot with you, in the order bidders should see them.

To gather

  • Lot number
  • Title and description
  • Condition and provenance
  • Category
  • Low and high estimate
  • Reserve and starting bid, where you use them
  • Photographs, at the largest size you have

Watch for

  • Photographs saved from a marketplace's pages: often small, sometimes watermarked. Use your originals.
  • Past results do not import as prices realised. Results build up on your site from your first sale with us; your older archive can stay where it is, linked from a page on your website.

5Your website and domain

Your website approved on a temporary address, then moved onto your own domain.

Time to allowThe website is built with you over a few rounds of changes. Setting the domain records takes minutes; allow up to two days for every network to see them.

What your house does

  • Review the website on its temporary auctionomy.site address, and approve it before anything changes on your domain.
  • Find out who controls your domain, and whether your email runs on the same domain.
  • Choose a quiet day for the switch, away from any closing sale.

What we do

  • Build the website in your colours and type, with your pages and your terms.
  • Add your domain and give you, or whoever looks after it, the exact records to set. Once they resolve, the secure certificate is issued and renewed automatically.

To gather

  • A login for your domain's registrar or DNS provider, or the person who looks after it
  • Your logo, photographs of the house, and the words you want on your pages
  • The page addresses on your current site that people link to most

Watch for

  • Moving the whole domain to a new DNS provider when only the website's records need to change. Your email can stop if its records are lost.
  • Old page addresses, such as an old lot page, do not carry over. Update the links you control: your email signature, social profiles, listings and printed catalogues.
  • Your old website keeps answering until the records change, so nothing goes dark before the switch.

6Payments and invoicing

Buyers pay your house directly, by bank transfer and, if you choose, by card.

Time to allowUnder an hour of forms. Stripe's own checks can take longer if it asks for documents.

What your house does

  • Give the bank details that should appear on every invoice.
  • If you want card payments, connect your house's Stripe account: an existing one, or a new one through Stripe's own sign-up. The owner does this.
  • Decide how you will chase and record payment, now that the money comes to you rather than through a marketplace.

What we do

  • Check your invoices show the premium, tax and payment details as you expect.
  • Go through your first invoices and settlement with you, after the first sale.

To gather

  • Bank account details for invoices
  • Your business registration details
  • The identity and bank details Stripe asks for, if you take cards
  • Your accountant's view on how premium and tax should be recorded

Watch for

  • Expecting a single net payout, as a marketplace sends. Each buyer now pays you, and you mark each invoice paid when the money arrives.
  • Leaving Stripe until the week of the sale. Connect it early so its checks are done.

7Your team

Everyone who works the sale has their own sign-in.

Time to allowMinutes to invite. An hour or so for each person to find their way around.

What your house does

  • Invite each member of staff as an administrator or a read-only member.
  • Decide who takes the rostrum, who clerks, who approves registrations and who answers bidders.

What we do

  • Walk your team through the parts of the dashboard each of them will use.

To gather

  • Each person's name, email and role
  • Who does what on sale day

Watch for

  • Sharing one sign-in. Each person has their own, and the audit log records who changed what.

8A rehearsal sale

Your auctioneer and clerk run the console once before it counts.

Time to allowA couple of hours, a week or more before the first sale.

What your house does

  • Bring whoever will take the rostrum and whoever will sit at the clerk's desk.
  • Have staff bid as bidders on their own phones, so you see the sale from both sides.
  • Try what you do in the room: a commission bid, a floor bid, a pass.

What we do

  • Run a practice sale with you, with test bidders bidding online.
  • For a timed sale, walk through publishing, approving bidders, the close and the invoices.

To gather

  • The people who will run the first sale
  • A few lots from the real catalogue to practise on

Watch for

  • Rehearsing the day before. Leave time to change anything the rehearsal shows.

9Your first sale

Your first sale under your own name, on your own website.

Time to allowYour usual sale, with more attention on registrations in the days before it.

What your house does

  • Publish the sale once its dates and details are complete.
  • Approve registrations as they arrive. Bidders cannot bid until you approve them for the sale.
  • Run the sale.

What we do

  • Follow the sale from our side, and stay reachable by telephone and email from the first lot to the last.

To gather

  • Someone watching registrations the evening before and the morning of the sale

Watch for

  • Registrations left waiting overnight. A bidder who is not approved cannot bid.
  • Regular bidders who have not signed up. Telephone them; staff can add them to the sale and take their bids by telephone or as commission bids, as you do today.

10After the move

The old system closed properly, and your bidders finding you on your own site.

Time to allowThe weeks after the first sale.

What your house does

  • Download everything you want from the old system before your access ends: results, invoices, bidder lists, photographs.
  • Give notice on the old contract when its terms allow.
  • Watch hammer totals, sell-through and bidder numbers on your dashboard from sale to sale.

What we do

  • Go through the first invoices and settlement with you, and look at what to change before the next sale.

To gather

  • The date your old access ends
  • Your notes from the first sale

Watch for

  • Closing an old account before its records are downloaded.

Keeping a marketplace running while you move

You do not have to leave the day you start. Running both for a while works, as long as each sale lives in one place.

  • Put each sale in one place

    A lot taking online bids in two systems at once can be bid on in both. Run each sale either on the marketplace or on your own website, not both.

  • Move a kind of sale at a time

    You can move timed sales first and keep live sales where they are until your team has run the console, or move everything at once. Either works when it is planned.

  • Read the marketplace's terms

    Check its notice period, any exclusivity, and what it allows you to say to bidders who found you there.

  • Decide when to stop

    Compare registrations and results on your own sales with the marketplace's, sale by sale, and give notice when your own sales carry the lots you want them to.

Questions about moving

Who owns our bidder data after the move?
Your house. Bidders register with you, on your website, and their records sit in your dashboard. You can download a bidder's records, or erase them, when they ask, and download a sale's catalogue as a spreadsheet or a PDF.
Can we keep selling on a marketplace while we move?
Yes, if its terms allow it. Run each sale in one place, and move sale by sale until your own website carries the sales you want it to.
Will our website go down when the domain moves?
Your new website is built and approved on a temporary address first, and your old one keeps answering until the records change. The switch is a few records at your DNS provider, for the website only; your email's records stay as they are. Most visitors see the new site within hours, and every network within about two days.
What if some bidders do not sign up again?
Their record stays in your customer list, with the contact details you imported. Telephone them. Staff can add them to a sale and take their bids by telephone or as commission bids, as you do today.
Do our bidders need new passwords?
Yes. No system hands over passwords. Each bidder creates an account once on your website, with the email address you hold for them, and their record is waiting.
Do we have to move everything at once?
No. You can start with one kind of sale, plan the first one, then the next.

Getting startedMarketplace or your ownPricing

Plan your move with us

Tell us where your house sells today and which sale you want to run first. We will work out the plan back from that date with you.

Talk to us