Auction House Fees Explained for UK Sellers

The two fees

Seller commission is a percentage of the hammer price, deducted before you are paid. Buyer premium is a percentage added on top of the hammer price, charged to the winning bidder. Both go to the auction house.

For UK general goods and commercial liquidation, seller commission is commonly around 25 percent plus VAT. John Pye, the largest name in UK liquidation auctions, publishes a buyer premium of 25 percent plus VAT in its own terms. Comparison sites put general goods seller commission for items under a few thousand pounds in the 10 to 25 percent range, with liquidation specialists often at the higher end.

Why the buyer premium is your problem

Bidders do not bid the hammer price, they bid the total they are willing to pay. If they know 30 percent is going to be added at checkout, they bid roughly 30 percent less at the hammer. The premium does not appear out of nowhere. It comes out of the number your stock would otherwise have reached.

This is the single most misunderstood thing in auction economics. A house that charges the buyer more is not being generous to the seller, it is quietly moving money from your hammer price into its own pocket.

The arithmetic, on a hundred pounds

A buyer with 130 pounds to spend at a house charging 25 percent plus VAT to the buyer will bid about 100 pounds. Take 25 percent plus VAT seller commission off that hammer and the consignor receives roughly 70 pounds. So of the 130 pounds the buyer actually spent, the seller sees about 54 percent and the house keeps the rest.

That is the real benchmark to hold any offer against. Not the commission rate on its own, but the share of what the buyer spends that ends up in your bank.

The other charges to ask about

• Entry or lotting fees, charged per lot whether it sells or not.
• Photography and cataloguing charges.
• Storage, especially if a lot goes unsold and has to be held or re entered.
• Withdrawal fees if you change your mind after consigning.
• Unsold lot handling, and who pays to move it back.

Any of these can turn an attractive headline commission into a poor net result on low value goods. Ask for the whole schedule in writing, not the commission rate.

How live selling changes the structure

Selling live on a marketplace works differently because there is no buyer premium available. eBay does not permit one. The buyer pays the price they bid plus postage, and nothing is added at checkout, so nobody is bidding down to leave room for a premium.

That means one number covers everything. Our own rate returns the consignor 50 percent of anything selling under 20 pounds, 60 percent from 20 to 100 pounds and 70 percent over 100 pounds, taken after platform fees rather than before. There is no entry fee, no lotting fee, no photography charge and no storage charge, which on low value mixed goods is usually where the traditional structure quietly eats the result.

What to ask before you consign anywhere

One question does most of the work. Of every pound a buyer spends, how many pence reach me. If the answer involves two separate percentages and a schedule of fixed charges, work it out on a hundred pound lot before you agree to anything.