The more you understand, the easier it is to sell. At liquidation auctions, with so many items to sell, sometimes things are sold in lots, or groups of items are sold as a unit. Accessories that have little or no value, we put in groups. Though much of the company's business comes via word of mouth, some has come through an aggressive advertising program developed by advertising manager Terry Moore, who came to James G. Murphy from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer 16 years ago. The business has changed over the years, said Tim Murphy.
People have to have an auction often to get rid of merchandise.
All the information they need is already in the system, including descriptions of the items sold that were already entered before the auction itself began. Prospective buyers are assigned bidder numbers before the auction begins. During the auction, office personnel type bidder numbers into the system. That's how the company handled payments before buying its first computer in 1986, she said. Fortunately for her and the company, the system has never crashed.