By Justin Fenton
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dave Warren handles online bids Saturday during the Treadway Gallery's decorative arts auction, held at Union Terminal. Among the items were Rookwood pottery, a Cincinnati product popular among collectors. The Cincinnati Enquirer/MEGGAN BOOKER

Dan Centeno rolled out of bed in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sunday morning and joined two art auctions in Cincinnati.

Still in his pajamas, he sat in front of two laptop computers, drinking coffee and watching the bidding live at Treadway Gallery and Cincinnati Art Galleries auctions 650 miles away.

"You don't even have to brush your teeth," said Centeno, 40, a financial analyst and budding art collector.

Treadway Gallery on Madison Road and the Cincinnati Art Galleries downtown are two of 250 auction houses and galleries nationwide that have turned to the Internet to broaden access to art auctions.

Both held auctions last weekend through eBay's Live Auctions site, which lets users from all over the world participate in real time, simulating the bidding-floor experience without the quick-tongued auctioneer shouting from the front.

"The market we're able to tap into is absolutely huge," said Dave Warren, who handles Treadway Gallery's advertising and Web design and pushed for an enhanced Web presence.

"EBay has ... users that we just didn't have a grasp on before we did this. Now we're dealing with having to ship to successful bidders from Australia to Japan to you name it, all around the world."

University of Cincinnati graduate Chris Downie, who sold an Internet auction company to eBay for $70 million in 1998, said several developments have contributed to the success of eBay as an online auction company, from high-speed Internet connections to security encryptions.

"It's a combination of technology increasing and the mindset of the buyers changing," said Downie, who is now CEO of SparkPeople, an Internet weight-loss site. "In 1998, online auctions were relatively new, but eBay just crossed 100 million users worldwide."

How it works

The auctions are not exclusively conducted on the Internet like most eBay sales. Instead, organizers have incorporated Web bidding into their standard live auctions. Internet users place their bids through a gallery employee and compete with those who are sitting at the auction raising their white paddles.

At Treadway, Warren uses a laptop that alerts him when an online participant has made a bid. Others handle phone and absentee bids for the gallery, creating an atmosphere that Warren says can be "quite hectic."

From home, a bidder simply logs on to eBay and watches the auction from a running program that continually updates itself without a user needing to refresh a Web browser. The only clicking a user needs to do is to place the bid. The program shows a picture of the item and lists its current high bid, estimated price and upcoming items.

Treadway Gallery first attempted to use the Internet in 1999 but abandoned the idea when slow connection speeds and crashing servers caused more harm than good. With broadband access now commonplace, Treadway Gallery gave the idea another shot last September and has stuck with it for the past four auctions.

EBay merely facilitates the auction, collecting 5 percent of the Internet sales on top of a flat rate of $1,500. But most auction houses neutralize their expenses by adding on a 5 percent fee for Internet bidders.

"That part of it's a wash," said Cincinnati Art Galleries director Riley Humler. "We try to explain to people that if they register with us, we can call them on the phone and save them that 5 percent, but some people just like to sit at home and use their mouse to buy things."

Owners of both galleries said the expanded market has been the greatest benefit. Several hundred people register for the Internet auction, and Cincinnati Art Galleries owner Randy Sandler said 10 percent to 20 percent of the items he auctions are sold to Internet bidders.

Treadway Gallery reports it sees anywhere from 20 percent to 30 percent in Internet business.

"It's a smaller percentage, and generally the items are the lower-end items," Sandler said. "[But] I think it does help. There's bidding on items that we might not necessarily have bidders for, such as obscure items that don't have a collector in Cincinnati."

Among the problems is coordinating the online bids and dealing with a new breed of "unsophisticated" bidders who can understand the process technologically but aren't as well-versed in the items being auctioned or the etiquette of bidding on major pieces, said gallery owner Don Treadway.

"It's beneficial, but there's a lot of pain and aggravation," said Treadway. "But from a business perspective, we made a decision that we think it is worth the aggravation."

Buyers' market

Internet buyers seem happy with the gallery's effort - Treadway has an eBay seller's rating of 98.8 percent positive - though for many collectors, nothing can replace the auction atmosphere.

"The Internet is faster and may be easier for some people, but the thrill of coming - it's like an outing," said Jeff Whitford, 44, of Cincinnati, who was at Union Terminal for the Treadway Gallery auction. "If you see the items personally, you can see the beauty and artwork."

But Centeno said the time and money he saves online is invaluable.

"It makes the world so small. Instead of spending precious time and money traveling, going to Cincinnati or England for pottery, all I need is to go to the Internet."

E-mail jfenton@enquirer.com