Image credit to: Sentient Imagery Limited. 

New bidr option proves its worth, underpinning demand and reaching nationwide market at South Otago Simmental stud’s annual bull sale.

A new format for bidr, an online helmsman auction, proved its worth at this year’s Beresford Simmental bull sale.

Situated on 1180 hectares of rolling to steep bush country in the Catlins, Otago, Beresford was established in 1981, started offering bulls in 1987 and has operated its own on-farm sale for the past 13 years.

Beresford founder Warren Burgess says the stud focuses on producing cattle that will flourish anywhere in the country.

“Big, natural, sound, easy handling bulls that will shift and do well wherever they are required,” he says.

Having offered their bulls on-farm via a helmsman auction for the past few years, development of the new bidr option enabled them to take the Beresford Simmental sale online this year.

“As well as a good crowd on farm, we also had several buyers participating from afar and were delighted with the outcome of the sale. It was very successful, increasing our reach and buyer pool across the country, giving more farmers the option to buy without having to be here in person.

“It helped sell two stud bulls to the North Island, and stimulated competition across the board, which we were pleased to see,” says Warren, who farms in partnership with his wife Stephanie, son Cameron and daughter-in-law Annabel Shadbolt.

With a helmsman-style auction, rather than offering the bulls sequentially, all are open for bidding simultaneously, and all remain available until the end of the sale. Bids and reserves are notified on all lots.

Buyers have time to gather and process information and to make decisions, giving them greater opportunities to assess all their options, particularly when buying remotely.

Beresford’s sale offered 16 bulls. Of 26 different bidders, eight were online and accounted for 36.5 per cent of the bids. Seven Beresford bulls sold online to five different buyers.

Annabel, who looks after Beresford’s marketing, was impressed with the way the auction proceeded.

“Having all the bids updated on a large screen was so much better than having them on a board, while getting buyer details at the end of the sale, which can be quite painful, was really straightforward this time. We also appreciated the level of detail and data that bidr provides: how many viewed the sale, how they found us, the list of registered buyers, and who bid. From that it is easy to work out who was taking our sale seriously. No way would we otherwise collect so much information or reach that number of people,” she says.

Sam Murphy, bidr national sales and operations manager, says although it’s still in its initial stages the helmsman format has been well received by vendors and buyers.

“Some people prefer helmsman as a more relaxed way to sell. For the last few years, we have received encouragement to develop this format. Now it’s developed, it is an additional way to bring a nationwide audience to livestock auctions. From those who have already used helmsman on bidr, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We welcome ideas for features and improvements to continue its development,” he says.

The helmsman bidr platform was used at a stag sale late last year, a handful of ram sales in January and is now in action for selected bull sales.

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