The sell-through rate is the figure every auction house owner looks at first when the sale closes. It is simple to compute, lots sold over lots offered, and it summarises the three things the auction house controls: whether the estimates were right, whether the reserves were sensible, and whether enough of the right bidders turned up. Lots that did not sell are bought in.
By lot and by value
Sell-through by lot tells you about the body of the sale. Sell-through by value tells you about the top of it. A sale that sells 92% of lots but only 60% of the low-estimate value has a problem with its important lots: too high a reserve, too optimistic an estimate, or a market that was not there on the day. The reverse pattern, high by value and low by lot, means the small lots were over-reserved or under-marketed, which is cheaper to fix. Report both every time, and track them by category and by consignor, because a consignor who insists on reserves at the high estimate will show up in the numbers.
Hammer against estimate
The companion figure is total hammer as a percentage of the total low estimate for sold lots. Above 100% means the estimates were conservative and the market was strong; well above means they were too low. Below means lots were selling at or near reserve. Looked at together with sell-through, these two numbers tell you whether to adjust estimates, reserves or marketing before the next sale.
Sell-through in auction software
These figures should appear on the dashboard the moment the last lot closes, by sale, category, specialist and consignor, without a spreadsheet. Circuit’s features include post-sale reporting of sold, unsold and withdrawn lots against estimate and reserve, and the predictive intelligence layer uses the same data to flag, before the next sale, which lots are reserved above what comparable results support.
