eBay has teamed up with famed auction house Sotheby’s to launch new live online auction site – ebay.com/sothebys. This site brings together Sotheby’s 270 years of experience in selling art and antiques with eBay’s digital proficiency and 155 million active users across the globe. This platform will allow collectors to bid on auctions in New York from anywhere in the world as they happen, access live streaming audio and video of the sales, and view items for sale.
The first live auctions on eBay will be the New York sale and Photographs sale on April 1. The sale will include the 13 huge letters of the 1970s Yankee Stadium sign that could fetch up to $600,000 from the collection of baseball great Reggie Jackson.
This is not the first time that Sotheby’s and eBay have partnered on online ventures. In 2003, Sotheby’s shut down sothebys.ebay.com, a site with separate online auctions, because it wasn’t generating enough profit. The auction giant is hoping that this time technology has caught up with the market. We’ll see.