With a smartphone to hand as they walk down a street anywhere in the world, a collector can follow a livestreamed auction thousands of miles away in Hong Kong, as well as bid on whatever they desire.
It is a way of transacting that appeals mostly to the millennial buyer and is leading to a shift in the demographics of auction-goers, who are now tending to be younger and Asian. According to Christie’s, Asia has been the driving force behind its increase in millennial engagement — 47 per cent of all new buyers from the Asia-Pacific region are millennials, notably from China, Singapore, and Taiwan, alongside the US and UK. They are mostly attracted to Asian art as well as jewels, watches, handbags and wine. Forty per cent of new buyers of watches in Hong Kong this year were under 40.
Auction house apps may have been around for a while, but the disruption caused by the pandemic has accelerated fundamental changes in salesroom operations, with rapid growth in online sales. That includes sales of big-ticket items, such as the 102-carat diamond that was sold online by Sotheby’s Hong Kong last year for £12.1m — in what turned out to be a confident and shrewd move by the seller, given there was no reserve price put on the gemstone.