THE focus of the South Eastern Livestock Exchange (SELX) at Yass extends beyond the traditional auction.
Exposure of stock to buyers will be maximised through the use of online auction tools, the investment in such technology showing absolute confidence in the auction system’s role in livestock marketing.
SELX director Rohan Arnold said, initially, the SELX team was focused on fine-tuning its normal auctions, however, once established, they will bring online features which will open up the centre’s sheep and cattle sales to a digital audience.
“Within the next 12 months we will have integrated online bidding. The facility has got fibre optics throughout and what we wanted to do as a business was crawl before we walked, get our sales right and then we will gradually start to integrate some video interface so people will be able to watch sales,” Mr Arnold said.
This will allow real-time viewing and bidding of the stock in concurrence with the physical sale.
“We see it as a dynamic place in the industry and from our point of view we see it as something that we will do as a stand alone business, because the open cry auction is delivering the best results and what we feel is that by simply integrating the online (features, we are adding to an already successful system),” Mr Arnold said.
He said by expanding the auction audience through online bidding, the auction system would become more effective at finding the best price point.
The owner of Outcross, the software and consultancy service provider for SELX, Tom Newsome, said by allowing remote participation in the sale, the stock offered at Yass were exposed to a truer reflection of market demand.
To assist this, his team was also using advanced data collection technology and software to produce sale catalogues.
“We’re in the process of putting a sale catalogue online so people will be able to log in first thing in the morning and sort the cattle at the SLEX facility.”
He said that would give them an understanding of what cattle would be offered without being on site.
