“Bought in” is the auction trade’s term for an unsold lot. When the final bid is below the reserve price, the auctioneer cannot sell, so the lot is formally bought in by the auction house on the consignor’s behalf and goes back to the consignor. In results lists it appears as “BI”, “passed” or “unsold”. No hammer price is recorded and no buyer’s premium is charged.
Why lots are bought in
Nearly always because the reserve was too high for the day. The usual reasons:
- the consignor insisted on a reserve at or near the high estimate
- the estimate was optimistic and the reserve followed it
- the lot was poorly described or photographed, so remote bidders passed over it
- the sale had too few bidders in that category, which is a marketing problem rather than a pricing one
A lot can also be withdrawn before the sale, which is different: a withdrawn lot was never offered.
The buy-in rate as a management figure
The percentage of lots sold, by number and by value, is the first figure most auction house owners look at after a sale. The sell-through rate by number tells you about reserves and cataloging; the rate by value tells you whether the important lots found buyers. A sale that sells 90% of lots but only 60% of the low-estimate value has a problem at the top end. Auction management software should report both without a spreadsheet; Circuit’s dashboards show sold, unsold and withdrawn lots against estimates as soon as the sale closes.
What happens next
Bought-in lots follow one of three routes. They are offered after the sale at the reserve, usually for a few days, to underbidders and anyone who asks. They are re-offered in a later sale with a lower reserve, if the consignor agrees. Or they are returned, and the consignor statement shows the lot as unsold with any buy-in fee deducted. An auction house CRM that records the underbidders on every unsold lot makes the after-sale the easiest of the three: the people who nearly bought the lot are already on file.
