On September 22, Bring a Trailer (BAT) surpassed $1bn (roughly R18,115,650,000) in sales for a year that has more than a quarter to run.
The sum obliterated last year’s total sales at the car auction website, which scored $829m (roughly R15,006,184,950) for all of 2021. That beat the $578m (roughly R10,462,695,900) in total sales Mecum Auctions reported on December 28 2021, and is more than double the $407m (roughly R7,363,891,700) in global car auction sales RM Sothebys' reported for 2021.
Factors seen and unseen have sped the growth, said Randy Nonnenberg, who co-founded the San Francisco-based online auction platform in 2007.
“We were the first marketplace to make all our results permanent and transparent on the website, and that has fostered trust most other venues don’t have. Users see the deep archive of results, and it helps make us their preferred market,” he said.
“What isn’t seen are the systems and team behind the scenes that allow us to deliver our 700-plus auctions per week, and 100 every day.”
BAT sells classic and collectible cars online in live auctions that typically last a week. Some auctions in premium categories run longer. Anyone can watch in real time while a clock ticks down, bids are placed, and comments — often lively and insightful — are posted. In the final two minutes of a sale, the clock restarts for a further two minutes when users place last-minute bids. At last count, BAT reported 880,000 active users and 390,000 registered bidders.
Products at BAT can range from two record-breaking Porsche Carrera GTs that sold for about $2m (roughly R36,186,200) apiece in January to run-of-the-mill classics such as patina-covered Ford Mustangs and Jaguar E-Types. You won’t see many of those at Gooding’s or RM Sotheby’s. BAT’s volume is key to its ability to outpace the competition. The average sale price of a vehicle on BAT last year was $46,435 (roughly R841,093), up from $34,996 (roughly R633,894) in 2020.
The platform has separated itself from traditional houses in more than its live online auctions, which outfits such as RM Sothebys and Gooding & Co did not offer until the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020. BAT also requires buyers to pay only 5% of a car’s sale price as a fee, and the figure is capped at $5,000 (roughly R90,566), regardless of the final price. Sellers pay a $99 (roughly R1,793) flat rate. The fees are significantly lower than the double-digit percentages required by the traditional auction houses from both sellers and buyers.
In 2021, BAT sold $828.7m (roughly R15,010,533,145) in cars. That constituted a 108% gain over the $398mn (roughly R7,209,113,300) worth it sold in 2020, and was a quarter-billion more than total sales at Mecum, its closest live-auction-house competitor. That was just a year after Hearst Autos acquired BAT for an undisclosed amount. At the current rate, Nonnenberg said, BAT is on pace to hit $1.3bn (roughly R23,558,015,000) by the end of the year.
He said his personal celebration will come around January, when the sequential lots sold are likely to hit 100,000. It would represent a significant achievement considering when it first launched, BAT sold cars at a rate of three a week. Total lots sold are about to eclipse 87,000, he said.
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