The short version
The contents of a house are photographed, described and split into lots. The lots go online for a fixed bidding window, usually a week or so. Bidding closes, buyers pay through the platform, and they collect from the property during a scheduled pickup window.
The main practical difference from a traditional estate sale is that strangers are not walking through the house for two days.
How the work actually breaks down
- Cataloging. Everything of value is identified, described, measured and photographed.
- Lotting. Deciding what sells individually and what sells as a group. This is most of the skill, because lotting well is the difference between a box of junk and eleven separate sales.
- Listing. The auction catalog goes live with a defined start and end.
- Bidding. Usually several days to a week.
- Settlement and pickup. Buyers pay, then collect in scheduled slots.
Terms you will see
- Lot. One thing, or one group of things, sold as a single unit.
- Reserve. A minimum price below which a lot will not sell. Many estate auctions run without reserves.
- Buyer’s premium. A percentage added to the winning bid and paid by the buyer, not the seller. It affects what bidders are willing to bid.
- Hammer price. The winning bid, before any premium.
- As-is. Sold with no warranty and no returns, which is the norm for estate contents.
- Soft close, or staggered close. Lots close a few minutes apart and a late bid extends that lot’s clock. It stops the last-second sniping that suppresses prices.
Where it does well
Anything a specialist collector wants, because the bidder pool is not limited to people who live nearby. Coins, tools, militaria, records, cameras, jewelry, and any collection with a following.
It also produces a record. Every lot has a description, photographs and a final price, which is the documentation an executor needs when the estate has to be accounted for.
Where it does badly
Bulky low-value furniture. A dining set that would sell locally for a modest sum often fails online, because the winning bidder has to arrange to move it.
Pickup is the friction. Buyers who do not collect are the main operational problem with online auctions, which is why the pickup window and the terms around abandoned lots matter more than they sound like they should.
Anything that does not sell still has to go somewhere. What happens to items that don’t sell covers the options.
Doing it yourself
Entirely possible for a limited number of good items. General marketplaces work for furniture and local pickup, and specialist platforms exist for coins, cameras, watches and records.
The labor is the photography and the descriptions, and then the messaging. Expect a lot of questions, a proportion of buyers who do not show up, and to be present for every collection. It is worth it for the twenty items that carry real value and rarely worth it below that.