LSL to charge for the App

There's an opportunity here for a non for profit selling platform to be run by the IFA. Only picked the IFA as it's a large farmer union already there. Setting it up would could get the government or EU to fund or part fund as well. Argument would be for the good of agriculture in Ireland and transparency and fairness it brings to the farming community.

LSL, Marteye, etc, are only there because of Covid. And it was a case of anyone quick will do. But covid is gone now and the benefits of the online platforms are shown without doubt. But it's gone a stage where the private platforms are looking to use their advantage to make the big bucks and it will remove the last line in my first paragraph.

The marts themselves would be best positioned to replicate a system and control the direction of cost.

I wouldn't underestimate however the enormous cost of running something like this. It needs to be staffed every minute that a mart is in progress as a technical difficulty can't last for more than a few minutes.

What would the cost be of staffing this with even 4 or 5 techies. Some on here will know better but there mightnt be change out of 500k (might be way off)..but there's a lot of gathering in that at 500/month/mart.

No doubt the developers of these platforms, as with most tech, see their payday not in the operational profitability but in selling a the majority proportion of the business to a company that can move it on to another stage.

Many of these type of developers move through and twist new start ups every 5 to 10 years.

I doubt it. Marts were paying a fee per head which bigger Marts did not like. Heard of figures of up to a euro/head.

500/ month is handy enough money for access to a sales platform for bigger Marts. Take Gortalea selling maybe 2k+animals a week it works out about 6-7 cent per head.

I would not pay for the subscription to the rag either actually avoid buying it. Young lads buy it 1-2 times a month. Trying to get him to stop no point funding the enemy.

Have LSL annual premium subscription for a couple of years so I can view previous sales. A bit peeved as Castleisland take down there sales videos at midnight the day of the sale. Ennis only show the previous/last sale. Hope if everyone has to pay a subscription that marts are forced to show sales for previous 2-3 months.

I never leave the yard without having something bought. At this stage it costs me less than a euro a head for cattle that I buy. It saves me a fortune in diesel.

Find Lsl much more user friendly than Mart eye or mart bids as you can look back at previous sales etc in some marts on it…

Imo it's €100 which can be offset against tax. It's better value that €100 to the IFA

Having only some animals available for online bidding would be a balls.

It’s Mickey money for the ability to put manners on those seeking to control opening bids and the ring.

You can watch the Marts on 4 different devices at the same time.I phoned their customer service yesterday to find out this. Which means that you could share your subscription with someone else.

And how would that work if you were buying?

I woukd imagine the premium/annual package woukd stay in place, however it may okay not increase in price. I think it's slightly less than 100 yoyo's

Marts are paying these companies at present so presumably that cost is passed on in commission to buyers and sellers, if farmers are paying directly for the service will the commission drop in price? ( I already know the answer! ) I remember a time when the vet would put on brass tags (and do the TB test) for free too, all these costs are small in themselves but they don't be long adding up.

As for sharing a subscription I'd imagine they will close off that soon enough if it became widespread

Maybe sharing just to view would be hard to stop, but buying could be linked straight to herd number. Was always going to happen, like sky sports/ herdwatch etc giving free subs to get you in and then you can't do without! Everything ( milking robots/cow collar health systems etc ) seems to come with ongoing " revenue streams" nowadays. Don't buy a lot here and usually only 1 mart so wont be paying up yet anyway

Of course most of the services you listed have on going subscriptions, they wouldn't last long if they didn't, servers cost money to run, somebody has to pay.

LSL want it all though, paid by mart, paid by farmer and I see there is some advertisements in the app too. I think they should have sold more advertising space with an option to subscribe to loose the advertisements.

They said they were in talks with the marts prior to the decision obviously the marts didn't want to pay more for the service either.

That would load all.cost on to buyers, however sellers and others use it for viewing and gathering price information as well. There is no free lunch.

Advertising income is limited as a buyer similar to use I was not aware of adverts tgat tells a story

I dunno, I think €50 isn't the worst value for viewing for the year. It's taxable as well. I only ever sell but it's a fantastic service to check in on a mart for a half hour to keep an eye on prices.

I missed the last lot of calves being sold back in April but I was able to go back to their lot number, it had the price they sold for and a picture of the board with their weight etc. Knew then before the mart person rang.

It is by definition the worst value as long as other operators are free though.

MartEye posted this on Facebook, I have doubts about recent claims of MartEye being controlled by the same people as LSL.