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A new slant on selling bulls

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elwapo

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After 11 years of bull sales we have decided to sell them all private treaty off the place. We plan on having a open house on march 4 to kick of the sale season with no bulls sold before hand. Instead of mailing out a thousand catalogues, of which i'm sure most end up in the post office garbage, we are doing an online catalogue. Here is the link. I would appreciate any feedback.





http://saab.websitewelcome.com/~watsonca/listings.php?ltype=1
 
I don't disagree that the costs and pains of putting together a sales catalogue/sale is taxing. Not to mention the heart attacks that follow. Good luck on the 4th!
 
How are you going to go about handling-a few oldtime customers all wanting the same bull on the 4th. When Dylan and I sold the last grass test bulls we had a bid board you just wrote your buyers number and amount you wanted to bid under the bulls tag. After a certain time if nobody raised it for five minutes it went to the highest bid written. It works good for guys wanting to buy a group of bulls as you know where you are budget wise at all times. The bulls look good and site looks easy to navigate by the way.
 
I liked the catalogue. I appreciate the breeder's candid coments. I know you are selling bulls, but no one knows the strengths and weakness or potential of an animal like the breeder.
 
NR. The issue has come up already with some of my long time customers. I have told them to be there on the fourth and first come first served. I have a couple of customers that want the bull they want and will pay any price to get it. They wont be happy when a guy buys it out from under them just because they were an hour late. The prices will posted as what i value the bulls at. I don't think the method is perfect, but it is one heck of a lot simpler. I just do not have enough bulls to compete in the volume game and i did not want to take on a guest consignor.
 
Well a good old fashioned fist fight in the bull pen is never bad lol. I'm sure things will work out just fine-good cattle tend to make that happen.
 
Very sharp website with good pictures and information on the bulls selling. I think you will get along fine with the private treaty setup.
 
I am like NR, am wandering how you will handle it when a couple guys want the same bull. The last private treaty sale we had, we said sale starts at March 1. At midnight the phone began to ring and we were selling bulls. When we got up at daylight, their were cars in our yard. One of the guys got a little upset, as the bull he wanted sold at midnight, and he thought we sold him earlier.
 
I think I'd pass on the private treaty first come first served situation. I like the idea of doing a bidding board where everyone writes their highest bid next to each bull. That way it doesn't have to be a fast-paced auction with commission to pay an auctioneer, but still two guys can have a battle for a bull and make him bring good money.
 
Those kind of sales work well.It's more a 'silent auction' and
the buyers seem to like the low key atmosphere of it.
I would and have bought bulls that way,
but to be 'first come, first served' would upset me that someone got there
before I did. Plus I might pay more than that person, so the seller is
losing out. A lot of thought needs to go into this type of sale.
A person in our area tried the 'first come, first served' and made a lot
of people mad and his sale the next year didn't work at all for him.
 
Trust me I did not give up the auction sale approach without thought. here are the points that caused me to change our approach.
1) sale day is totally dependant on the weather
2) a sale wreck for any reason ruins the down the road price for no - sales
3) sale day costs are very high due to staffing,consulting, and date specific advertising.
4) the bottom price for bulls is set by pass out dollar or ring men running the bulls to the pass out price.
5) I sent out 1000 catalogues costing about $4000.00 and 50 people show up.
6) there are probably four bull sales a day for march and april in order to compete I need to sell 75 or more bulls.
7) I am not a high profile uber salesman. Never have been and never will. To blow the bull sale smoke runs totally against my grain.

This approach, while not perfect, allows me to get a little less for the bulls and pay less expenses. It is a win-win for buyers and seller. Am I losing the $10,000.00 dollar high seller. Yes, but believe it or not, I prefer to sell to commercial guys any day.
I guess there will be people upset by this approach to selling although I sincerely do not think there will be a fight in the bull pen. There are lots of sales every day to choose from if the customer cannot get the bull he needs at my place.
 
Guys here who have them walk the bull in the ring and ask if anyone wants him at set price. If more than one want him they keep going up a $100 at a time until only one bidder remains.If knowone wants a certain bull they let him out to be sold another day. If both guys drop out at the same dollar mark the bull goes to the bidder with the lowest number if the other bidder wants he can then bid $50 more and back and forth until only one remains normally its a 10 second deal.With this method you can still have a high seller.
 
Northern Rancher said:
How are you going to go about handling-a few oldtime customers all wanting the same bull on the 4th. When Dylan and I sold the last grass test bulls we had a bid board you just wrote your buyers number and amount you wanted to bid under the bulls tag. After a certain time if nobody raised it for five minutes it went to the highest bid written. It works good for guys wanting to buy a group of bulls as you know where you are budget wise at all times. The bulls look good and site looks easy to navigate by the way.
Click to expand...


I've bought bulls and heifers both at sales like that and really like them...Gives you some time to look over the animals- and take some time deciding on whether you want to go higher or not...

Sales I've attended start taking bids at 11AM- end at 2PM-- with lunch served during the noon hour right at the corrals....
All have a minimum bid they will accept- and whoevers name is last on the list with highest bid at 2PM owns them...
 
When we were in Nebraska our bull sale was similiar...all the bulls stayed in their respective pens, with a board on the fence with preset prices for the pen and the lot numbers. If you wanted the chance to bid on a particular bull, you had to write down your name next to the bulls tag. When the bidding began, only those people were allowed to bid on that bull and you saw exactly who you were bidding against. No jumping in at the last minute, and if you decided you didn't want the bull when the bidding started you could pass, you weren't obligated to anything just because you put your name down..worked very well
 
Went to a few showsteers' sales that worked like this, once you understand the concept it is easy to follow.

Steers listed in order of sale
Each steers had a base price, if you where the only one to put a bid on him he was your for the base price
Then every time someone put their name on a steer the price went up a 50 dollars unless the last person put a higher bid in, (if the steer was at 1200 they could go to 1250 or higher) But you only had to put one bid on the animal to be included on the bid off.
At a arranged time they would close the bids on the first steer, from there they would close the open bidding on a steer every 5 minutes or after the previous animal sold which ever was longer, at this time only buyers with their name on the list could bid, starting with the lowest bidder.
They could bid 50 more than the highest bidder on the list, if they chose not to they were out and it went to the next bidder.
This went on until there was only one bidder left, if nobody upped the bid the last person to put an original bid on the animal was the owner.
If you had placed multiple bids on animals you could back out of the others once you purchased one, but since they closed at intervals you just needed to get on one early and you could fall back to a bull who was still taking open for bids.

What most did is find the steer they were interested in that sold the earliest in the sale and get on that one, but have a list of other steers you were also interested in so you could bid on them if you missed out on your first, some times the first one was not your favorite but it got you started in the process.
 
Hey there NR todays the day. I thought you would be coming down to be the "Bull Pen Referee" I even had a badge made up for you. I hope some people show up for the open house despite the persistent winter, interest has been very good.
 
Well you should of asked I went through the Hat yesterday in search of the elusive North American black Baldy moderate framous lol. Hope the wind dies down a bit from yesterday for your deal today.
 
elwapo said:
Hey there NR todays the day. I thought you would be coming down to be the "Bull Pen Referee" I even had a badge made up for you. I hope some people show up for the open house despite the persistent winter, interest has been very good.
Click to expand...

Wishing you the best of luck today. :D

Let us know how it turns out. :D
 

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