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Video auctions boost profits
 By Olivia Maddox
Technology has changed the way we buy and sell. We have only to look at the more than 4 million items for sale daily on ebay.com as evidence. The attraction is simple. By increasing your pool of buyers, you also increase your potential for profit. And while cattle producers aren't buying and selling on eBay®, they are taking advantage of technology to expand their markets.
Until recently, producers in Dubois County used traditional methods of selling cattle that have been in place for generations. "Small lots of cattle are sold to others in the county or hauled to markets in Evansville or Louisville," says Dubois County Extension educator Jim Peter. "And once they've loaded up their cattle and taken them to market, few are going to bring them back, even if they don't get the price that they want."
It was dissatisfaction with price that prompted southern Indiana cattleman Alan Werne to give satellite video auctions a try. "It was appealing to me because if I didn't like the price, I still had them at home," he says. Werne sells a semi-load (50,000 pounds) of feeder cattle once a year.
 Here's how it works. A video auction company sends a representative out to the seller's farm to videotape the cattle. Information about the lot is included in a sale catalog that goes to registered buyers nationwide. Sellers know within a 30-minute timeframe when their cattle will sell. They can listen to the auction on the phone or watch it via satellite. The seller pays a commission, and the buyer is responsible for transportation.
Peter and the Dubois County Cattlemen's Association helped bring some of the smaller producers, who can't make a semi-load on their own, together to capitalize on these auctions.
"Truckloads of like cattle sell better than small lots," says Peter. "A buyer will generally purchase several small lots and then put them together to make a semi-load." By pooling their cattle, local producers cut out the middleman and increased their profits between $2,000 and $5,000 per semi-load.
The Indiana Beef Evaluation Program at Purdue also uses video auctions at its bull sales. Buyers can attend the sale in person or bid from one of several video sites located around the state. In April, the sale set a record for the most bulls sold by video auction; 34 of the 129 bulls were sold at five video sites.
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