ALERT! The Buyer’s Fee in Concert Poster Auctions is Paid by YOU – The Seller!

When weighing the risks and rewards of selling concert posters at auction, it’s imperative that you fully understand the math that will be involved in determining how much money you’ll receive when the auction closes.

Clearly, the headline fee that most people focus on is the “Seller’s Fee”. This is the fee that is deducted from the winning hammer bid by the auctioneer, with the remaining balance sent to you. 

This math is simple enough. 

If you consign a poster that has a winning bid of $5,000, and the Seller’s Fee is 20%, then the auctioneer will deduct $1,000 as your Seller’s Fee and remit the remaining $4,000 to you.

But wait, things are not as simple as they appear. 

Let’s say that the poster you decide to consign to auction is generally acknowledged to have a current market value of about $5,000. And the auction you consign to charges bidders a “Buyer’s Fee” of 20% on top of all winning bids. 

This means that if a collector wants to pay the current market price of $5,000, they will set a top bid of $4,200 which would make their total cost for the poster $5,040. ($4,200 plus 20%). 

The bottom line is that if your poster sells at auction for $5,000, you will receive $3,360 if there is a 20% buyer’s fee and a 20% seller’s fee.

Additionally, if the auction company you choose charges it’s bidder’s sales tax, this too will often be deducted by collectors when calculating their top bids.

Lastly, some auction houses also charge their consigners a fee to photograph each poster, and a fee to ship and insure each poster to them. These fees can really add up and further dilute what you ultimately get paid for your auction consignment.