Global Views: Who Can You Trust?

In Global Views, Godolphin Flying Start trainees provide insight into practices experienced and observations taken on their worldwide travels. Second-year trainee Arvin Chadee looks at opportunities for transparency at the sales.

As consumers, the way we make important purchases-like investing in the share market, buying real estate or even booking a holiday–has evolved considerably over the last 20 years thanks to the internet, technology and social media. Yet, the process of purchasing a Thoroughbred has evolved only marginally.

Those evolutions have included the introduction of online bidding and purely online sales, which became more widespread and was adopted by many auction houses in 2020 due to the global pandemic. Vendors have also become accustomed to providing buyers with extensive videos of horses in the lead-up to sales. However, in comparison to the greater marketplace, we as an industry have been unable or unwilling to truly innovate and adapt.

At the forefront of creating change is the Kick Sales Platform. Consumer behaviour has changed the way we make purchases, whether that be watching influencers review the latest tech gadgets on YouTube, reading reviews of local eateries on TripAdvisor or having detailed specifications of used vehicles on Autotrader. We now have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips. The Kick Sales Platform is bringing this to the Thoroughbred marketplace.

When Vicky Leonard first set out to create the Kick Sales Platform, she was confounded by the unparalleled amount of information available on the stock market when looking to invest in shares. Comparing that to the Thoroughbred yearling market, she found an information barrier.

“Yearling buyers only know what's in front of them in the sales catalogue–the branding on the horse's shoulder only illustrates where the horse was weaned, not bred, and vendors have the option to say and hide what they want.” Leonard said. “Asymmetric information refers to when one party in a transaction possesses more information than the other.” This is the case when buying Thoroughbreds.

This information barrier is also a barrier to entry for potential owners looking to enter the Thoroughbred industry at a time when, as a collective, we should be encouraging and making our industry more accessible. The Kick Sales Platform allows buyers to freely access records such as ownership, breeder details, horse history, vaccinations, current treatments, x-ray and scope reports, extensive pedigree information and dam progeny and race records.

Scone based Bhima Thoroughbreds launched the Kick Sales Platform at the 2019 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Mike Fleming, owner and manager of Bhima, explains that improving the consumer experience was pivotal to enabling his business to differentiate from its competitors.

“When you stand in the shoes of the buyer with a catalogue of 1000-plus horses these days, it's easy to see how their experience can be improved,” Fleming said. “This service and platform put full information on the product in front of the buyer quickly and easily.”

The platform not only benefits consumers, but improves the experience of bloodstock agents. Craig Rounsefell of Boomer Bloodstock said the platform allows him to look closely at more horses in a large catalogue.

“At every sale, there are many very nice horses that slip through the cracks under value simply because, as a buyer, I can't vet every single horse I like; it is cost-prohibitive,” he said. “The sales platform has revolutionised the buying process for me and will allow me to bid on a lot more horses.”

While using the Kick Sales Platform, Bhima achieved a clearance rate in 2019 of 97.4%. The current industry standard is 84.19%.

Fleming also noted, “more people have inquired to sell their horses through Bhima due to us being on the Kick Sales Platform.”

Collaborative consumption–or the sharing economy–is built on shared trust between two parties. It's an economic system in which services and assets are shared between private individuals through technology in a peer-to-peer networking system. Think Airbnb, Uber and Kickstarter.

Although the yearling marketplace differs from the collaborative consumption market, lessons can be learned from this economy and culture.

The shift in consumer behaviour, technology and the social media era has revolutionised the way we interact with one another and how we interact with marketplaces. Rachel Botsman, the author of Who Can You Trust? describes how rapid adoption of new technologies has increased the efficiency and the social glue of trust. For example, active Facebook users are three times more likely than a non-internet user to believe that most people are trustworthy. The successes of collaborative consumption entities like Airbnb are not the assets it holds or the money it has, but rather using technology to build trust between strangers.

The Kick Sales Platform is establishing this kind of trust between vendors, consumers and bloodstock agents through unprecedented levels of transparency. They have coupled technology through an ergonomic digital platform with a reputation of providing accurate and transparent information on every horse listed.

Rachel Botsman outlines how “virtual trust will transform the way we trust one another face-to-face.” Reputation is the measurement of how much a community trusts you. As your reputation improves, consumers will further trust you as a brand and feel confident buying from you.

Operating in a world that is extremely fast-paced and with technology constantly evolving-as well as living in a momentous time in history when international sport was cancelled and the eyes of the world were on Australian racing due to the global pandemic–it is clearer than ever that as an industry, adopting transparency through technology is going to be a game-changing move for an industry steeped in tradition. Initiatives like the Kick Sales Platform are redefining the industry standard of trust and transparency worldwide.