Age is no barrier to online bidding
Bungowannah Park owner 91-year old Bill Weidner
Demonstrating that age is no barrier to buying livestock online, Bungowannah Park owner 91-year old Bill Weidner, supported by his daughter Gayle Quinn, purchased $75,000 in stock at Northern Victoria Livestock Exchange store sale via StockLive.
A lifetime of experience in the industry and despite frustration with not being able to attend the saleyard due to physical distancing restrictions, Bill and Gayle said they were happy with the ability to purchase online to keep the business going.
“At almost 92 my father is fit, healthy and very involved in the day-to-day running of our business and this doesn’t stop even with the COVD-19 pandemic. Having the ability to purchase livestock online and have it delivered ensures Bungowannah Park can continue as usual. And while I click the bids, it’s very much under the direction of dad sitting beside me doing the selection and purchasing, just as he has always done,” said Gayle.
StockLive Manager, Libby Hufton said with 8000 head of store cattle on offer over the last two days across sales at NVLX Barnawartha, SWVLX Warrnambool, NRLX Casino and TRLX Tamworth the number of people actually purchasing online is growing steadily as both the yards and bidders become more comfortable with the process.
“Across the three sales today we had over 520 people watching and 43 registered bidders, with strong competition for cows and calves coming from online across all of the sales.
“We were back at Warrnambool for their second store sale being offered online which resulted in $100,000 in sales via StockLive and around 200 people watching, with strong demand online for the Friesian x heifers. In Tamworth, 20% of the sale was bid online and Casino had 139 viewers, with 22 of the lots on offer also being bid online.
“The saleyards see the online participation as really encouraging and the service itself as complementing their physical offer and we expect these online participation numbers to continue to grow even as COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease,” said Libby.
Age is no barrier to online bidding 91-year old Bill Weidner,
