CyberStockyard Sells Cattle
At Auction Using Internet

By David Bowser

STARKVILLE, Miss. — This picturesque town near the Natchez Trace is only a click away on a computer. With a few more clicks, Scott Sanders here will sell you all the cattle you want from an auction in Nebraska — and you never have to leave the comfort of your living room.

Sanders' plan is not to limit buyers and sellers to just Nebraska or Mississippi. From his website on the Internet, he plans to offer access to a number of livestock auction barns through his CyberStockyard, the name of his company and his website.

The company conducted five online sales from July through October.

"In our first sale we had 400 and something," says Sanders’ father, David. "Our second sale had over 500, and in our third sale we had 1200." Soon the number was up to 3600.

The new company had its beginning earlier this year when David Sanders wanted a website, a page on the Internet, to advertise his existing order buying business in Starkville. His 24 year-old son, Scott, got a computer in the spring and began exploring cyberspace.

"Scott's the one who really did it and put it together," David Sanders says.

"Daddy wanted to build a website to start advertising Sanders Cattle Company," Scott Sanders explains. "I didn't know anything about the Internet much. We bought a computer, and I got to fiddling around with it and getting on the Internet. I realized that this was the most efficient way I'd ever seen to transfer information. Basically, all you're doing when you're selling cattle is transferring information.

"That's all it is. That's what I stress to my buyers. You're not doing something really new here. You're just doing it in a new way. It's a more cost-effective way. It's not like the cattle are going to be any different just because you bought them on the Internet."

At 50 years old, David Sanders, has been trading cattle ever since he was 12. Now his son has joined the company and taken it one step further.

"I went to a company called Web Services in Starkville," Scott Sanders says. "I just started picking their brains about what the limits were on the Internet."

Web Services builds web pages and offers web-based software application processes on the Internet.

"They were telling me about the new technologies and streaming video and the Java-based programs and that sort of thing," Scott says. "We just started putting things together. They started telling what we could do and what we couldn't do, and I told them what had to happen in order for it to be a real auction. We put this thing together. They're partners in the business with us. They take care of the technology, and we take care of selling the cattle."

"We're going to Burwell, Neb., and help on that sale up there the day after Thanksgiving," David Sanders says. "They've got about 7000 cattle up there."

"It's called their Day After Thanksgiving Special," Scott says.

"All the sales are live," David adds. "This is a pretty neat little deal to sell cattle, I can tell you that. I'm not too good a computer person, but Scott can tell you how it works."

"We're having a good bit of success with it," Scott says. "We're having some growing pains, but we're having some success. It being accepted a little bit more and more every day."

While working with the Burwell auction barn, Scott started talking to others in the livestock marketing business.

There's been so much pressure on the local livestock market with video auctions coming in and taking market share from them, Scott says, CyberStockyard decided to take their technology and offer it to the local sale barns.

"What we're going to do is install this software in a local auction barn where they can broadcast that sale all over the United States," Scott says. "An order buyer in Mississippi or Alabama or Kentucky can now buy cattle out of Nebraska or Oklahoma or Kansas."

With the reach of the Worldwide Web, there's no reason anyone in the world can't show up at a local sale barn to bid on cattle or to sell some.

"In the places where we don't have auction markets, we'll be hiring reps to do stand-alone sales," Scott says. "We're really wanting to take it into the local markets and give them kind of a one-up. Let them grab some market share back."

The livestock auctions with which Scott is working now sell mostly load lots of cattle.

"They are very excited about it, because now they can have their own forward contracting sales, and it doesn't cost them an arm and a leg, and they don't have to get tied up with the video auctions to do it," Scott says.

They've tested the software to make sure it was fast enough to keep up with the auctioneer.

"The software worked great," Scott says.

While the technology is changing, the basic scenario remains the same. It's the same cattle in the same sale ring, Scott says. It's just a different way of communicating.

"They still have four legs and two ears and all grade Choice," he grins.