Behind the business with auctioneers, Anderson and Garland

Andrew McCoull is managing director of Newcastle-based auctioneers Anderson and Garland. Here, he takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

We’ve actually had a few extremely good years. Contrary to the drop in sales experienced by other sectors, the recession created a renewed interest in antiques and since late 2008 onwards, footfall in the sale room has continued to increase. The reasons for this have been two-fold – some people are looking for goods that are bargains compared to today’s retail prices, while others see antiques as an alternative investment in view of low interest rates and the uncertainty of the stock market.

That said, perhaps our biggest challenge is one that faces organisations everywhere and that is how we stay up to date and maximise the opportunities afforded us by new technology. We are constantly re-evaluating how we are doing things to stay up to date. We currently offer online and telephone bidding and recently introduced a system called EPAI Live, which is a bidding portal that gives us direct links with customers in mainland China.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

One of our biggest achievements has been securing the sale of the contents of The Hermitage in Hexham. We had been involved with the family and executors of the country house for many years but that never guarantees an instruction. The experience was almost a once in a lifetime one – this literally was the house that time forgot – and the contents were hugely popular, selling collectively for just short of £300,000.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

I guess this links to question one, as we will be looking at and renewing the website to ensure this is fit for purpose. Outside of that, we intend to maintain and grow our market share by servicing existing clients to the best of our ability and by securing new ones.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, what would it be?

My view would be to find a sector that is possibly under serviced or not represented well. There are often gaps in the market for a high quality service or manufactured goods or services that are of superior quality to those available. Increasingly the products that are available to buy are shipped in from the Far East and the standards can be poor. If you analyse the companies that are successful in manufacturing they are by and large those producing a high quality, niche product. Grundfos UK and Express Engineering are excellent examples of this and are doing very well because of it.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in your region or generally, and where your organisation sits within it?

We have a very diverse client base and from what we see, there are many buoyant businesses within the North East. There are significant numbers of people continually looking to invest in antiques and who continue to purchase at our auctions for their homes and as gifts. However, that is not the case across the board. We have certainly seen an increase in approaches from business people and members of the public who wish to auction goods to increase revenue, suggesting there are those still feeling the pinch. It will be interesting to see whether this drops off or not as the economic climate improves.