How to Run an Online Bull Sale
Most spring bull sales close somewhere between February and April, and the ranch has been getting those bulls ready since the previous summer. An online sale follows the same calendar. What changes is where the catalog lives and how the bidding happens.
Here is how a timed online bull sale comes together, in the order the work gets done.
When Should You Start Planning an Online Bull Sale?
In the fall, for a spring sale. That is when yearling weights come in, when semen tests get scheduled and when you decide which bulls make the sale and which ones go to town.
If the sale is going online for the first time, the fall is also when the sale website gets built. On our platform the sale website is ready within 7 days of signing, as long as we have what we need from you, which leaves the winter for loading lots and talking to buyers. A new ranch website with the sale built in is a bigger job, so start that conversation early. How it works lays out each step from the first call to the final report.
One more fall job: check your state's rules on auctions and auctioneer licensing. Some states have them. Licensing is between you and your state, so ask before you set a date.
What Goes on Each Bull's Page?
Everything a buyer would look at if they were standing at the pen. In a timed online sale they have days to study it instead of a few minutes.
- Photos, as many as you want to show
- A YouTube video of the bull walking
- Pedigree
- EPDs, typed in or attached as the PDF from your breed registry
- Birth, weaning and yearling weights
- Scrotal measurement and semen test results
- Your own notes on the bull
Put your herd sires in a Reference Sires category and mark them display-only. They show in the catalog with their own photos and EPDs, nobody can bid on them, and a buyer can look at the sire behind a sale bull without leaving your site.
Categories also split the catalog into groups like yearling bulls and two-year-olds, so a buyer who only wants coming two-year-olds can go straight to them. More on building out each lot is on the online bull sales page.
How Do You Set the Sale Dates?
You pick each date. A schedule many sellers use:
- Two to three weeks out: the catalog goes live. Buyers study the bulls, watch the videos and register.
- Several days before the close: bidding opens. Buyers have time to work through the catalog and place maximum bids.
- Sale day: every lot closes at the time you set. A bid in the final minutes gives that lot a few more minutes, and the clock keeps extending while bids keep coming.
- After the close: bulls that did not sell move to buy-it-now at the price you set, until the end date you choose.
Pick a closing time your buyers can be near a phone for. In our most recent cattle sale, the last day brought 166 bids, 79 of them after 7 PM, and extended bidding kept the final lots open about twenty minutes past the scheduled close.
What Should Your Sale Terms Cover?
Write the terms before the catalog goes live, because buyers read them before they register. For a bull sale the terms usually spell out:
- When payment is due and how you take it (card on file through Stripe, check, or both)
- The breeding guarantee on bulls, if you offer one, and what it covers
- Health papers and what comes with each bull
- When registration papers transfer
- Delivery: free hauling within a set distance, buyer arranges trucking, or some other arrangement
- A pickup deadline and the board charge after it
- When risk passes to the buyer
Our sample sale terms have blanks for each of these. Have your own attorney look over the finished terms, since every state is a little different.
If you want a card on file before anyone can bid, turn that on. It is optional, most sellers use it, and it cuts down on buyers who win and do not pay.
How Do You Get Buyers to the Sale?
The same way you always have, plus a web address. The catalog mailing and the phone calls still matter, and each one now points to a place where the buyer can see the bulls and bid from the pickup.
Give buyers a bidding guide so the first-timers know what to expect. Our sample bidding guide covers registering, maximum bids and extended bidding, and you can copy it onto your sale website with your ranch's name on it.
Every sale on our platform also gets four posts on our Facebook page and a listing on our Upcoming Sales page. Past buyers are the people most likely to come back, and the optional Bidder Email Campaign sends four emails to your own buyer list around the sale.
What Happens on Sale Day and After?
Once bidding opens, the software runs the sale. Maximum bids, bid confirmations and outbid emails all go out on their own. Your job on sale day is answering the phone, because buyer questions come to you.
When the sale closes, winning buyers get an email right away. You contact them, collect payment and arrange delivery and papers on your terms. Your dashboard shows every bid on every lot, who won and who has paid, and all of it exports to Excel. The buyer list is yours to keep for next year's catalog mailing.
Ready to Talk Through Your Sale?
Tell Tom about your bulls and the date you have in mind, and he will tell you whether a timed online sale fits them. Reach out here.