The Digital Auction House

Friday, Feb. 22, 2002
It will come as a surprise to no one that art auction houses are tightly regulated in France. Only auctioneers with state authorization can operate there. That's given Collecties.com, a French online auctioneer of art and fine objects, a bit of a head start. "We are still the only online auction house in France operating legally," explains CEO Stephen Belfond. Alas, that will soon change. Last year the two biggest names in art auctioneering, Sotheby's and Christie's, were finally permitted to expand into France. Neither has yet begun online sales, but Sotheby's has recently partnered with eBay, the massive online auction site, so the future seems certain.

But Belfond is not worried. He's not convinced that high-range art will sell well on the Internet, mainly because of fears of forgeries. Collecties.com has instead staked out a position in the low- to mid-price range. Moreover, it offers a 10-year guarantee on the authenticity of each item sold. With few exceptions, most of its pieces are priced between $70 and $70,000. It so far has just four departments: photography (particularly late 20th century), toys, militaria and graphic arts. It plans to soon open two more in tribal arts and "the art of love."

Customers can, of course, view the items online. But for each auction, it also holds an exhibition at l'Galerie, a Parisian art gallery. Belfond says the Internet is an efficient and inexpensive way to publish a catalogue. So far, for big sales, only about 20% of clients buy online, most still preferring to rely on telephones and faxes. Each month, the site has 60,000 unique visitors. It now has about 750 regular buyers — more than half located outside France — and it represents about 80 to 100 merchants and collectors. Belfond says the company attempts to have a close, working relationship with all of its buyers and sellers. Last year, Collecties.com held about 30 auctions. (It also handles fixed-price sales of some items.) This year, Belfond expects to schedule fewer, but larger auctions. Some of its bigger auctions last year included the works of photographers Gisèle Freund, Robert Doisneau and Man Ray.

Collecties.com was launched in late 1999 by Belfond and Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr, a well-known art auctioneer in France. Belfond is an entrepreneur and consultant who had already been involved in several other start-up companies. The notion, he says, was to build a business that was consumer-friendly (thus the guarantees) and low-cost. Collecties.com has needed only $1.5 million in financing, and Belfond says it is rapidly nearing its break-even point.

Increasingly, Belfond wants Collecties.com to focus on sales of original photographic prints, though it will continue to sell other products. "We want to become a leader in photo art sales," he says. The mid-range photography market, where prices average about $1,000, is a fairly new one, Belfond says. That gives a young company like Collecties.com a better chance to develop an expertise and capture a sizable amount of market share.