(Winchester, VA) — Technology start-up Auctacity.com, the Winchester, Virginia website where sellers create an auction with one or more items that end together at one time, is appealing to a national audience with a new mobile bidding app.
The app will make it possible for bidders to sign up, subscribe, bid and keep track of their auction activity.
“The intention,” website owner Jeremy Tharp, “is to keep it local, so bidders can come on site and inspect items and also come back on site to pick up items they win.”
This means focusing on the local aspects within each community they serve.
Auctacity.com is currently focused on Winchester and Frederick County but is looking to gain a national audience by offering the service to other dealers in other cities and towns. Antiques dealers, estates and local government can all benefit from the Auctacity platform and the new mobile application.
Putting a large group of items on the site at once allows local organizations to make more money from their auctions and gives potential buyers the chance to see the items in a conventional auction platform but bid on their time. GNC Antiques of Winchester, for example, uses the site to offer their wide variety of antiques and collectibles to a broader audience who might not be able to shop in person very often. In addition, the Auctacity platform enables them to field questions and hold an auction without having to be computer programmers too.
This format allows antiques dealers, government agencies and other dealers to focus on their own business and still make money from their auction. The mobile app will expand the possibilities even more.
“The app will bring all of the features of the web app to the mobile platform,” Tharp said. A Kickstarter campaign has been started to help Tharp build the mobile bidding platform for his site.
Auctacity.com started in 2010 and has been steadily building auctions in a variety of sectors from antiques to government surplus.
Jon’s Everything Store offers a weekly auction where items like office chairs, fishing rods and computer components are available for purchase.
GNC Antiques offers everything from Victorian oak book cases and mahogany library tables to 1950’s style chrome kitchen step stools.
The site is devoted, unlike eBay, to giving local outlets a way to list a variety of items at one time. “Further, because we are local,” Tharp said, “we can promote a sellers items through many local venues, rather than just online.”
According to Tharp, “Auctacity was launched in 2010 when I was a partner in a software development company. We built Auctacity for a client in Berryville (10 minutes from Winchester) to create a more modern and cheaper platform for the archaic multiple item online auction experience. I was the sole paid employee and developer in the partnership, so I contributed much of the design and all of the code.
“Ultimately at the end of April this year, we dissolved the partnership and I became the sole owner as a result.
“My goal now is to become THE name in online auction hosting, at least on a regional level, and hopefully nationally. We’ve done a whole lot with a virtually zero advertising budget, and this mobile app will just add to that (and hopefully bring us some publicity attention which we are certainly due).
“We gained a lot of traction last year when our biggest seller, GNC Antiques of Winchester signed up. Our user base has quadrupled since then and our center of gravity, so to speak, formally became Winchester & Frederick county.”
I am a buyer, and I must say Auctacity is a wonderful group in all ways. Fair, efficient, and when one
wins a bid, it is a pleasure picking up because the people are so nice and fun to talk with. Mr. Chip Pullen with GNC is great. This is an online auction site one can trust, what you see is truly what you are buying. Also, they do answer questions promptly and accurately.