How to Export Auction Lots to Proxibid

High-volume equipment and liquidation auctioneers run into the same wall as everyone else, just at a larger scale: every lot needs a title, a description, and a category, and that work tends to get redone for each marketplace the sale is listed on. When a single sale runs to hundreds or thousands of equipment lots, re-keying the same data across platforms turns into days of labor.

The market backdrop makes the inefficiency expensive. According to The Insight Partners (2025), the auction back-office software market is valued at $2.79 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $5.02 billion by 2034. Tooling is consolidating around software that removes manual steps, and cataloging is one of the largest manual steps left.

This guide covers the catalog-once path for Proxibid: catalog each lot one time in Gavelist, export a Proxibid-formatted file, and import it into your Proxibid event. The cataloging happens once, and the same catalog can also feed LiveAuctioneers, HiBid, eBay, and other platforms without redoing it. For a broader look at the tools, see our roundup of the best AI cataloging software.

Before you export to Proxibid

• Lot photos. Gavelist catalogs from your images, so have them shot and grouped by lot, including condition and ID-plate shots for equipment where they matter.
• Lots grouped or numbered the way they will sell, so each lot maps to a single catalog row.
• A Proxibid seller account with the auction event already created to receive the catalog.

Step 1: Catalog the lots once

Upload your lot photos to Gavelist. In one cataloging pass, Gavelist generates the title, description, category, and value estimate for each lot from the images. You review and correct as needed, but the starting point is a generated draft rather than an empty field.

At equipment-sale scale, the throughput is what makes this practical. Gavelist catalogs about 1,000 lots in roughly 10 minutes on the description pass, about 6,000 lots per hour, running 8 concurrent workers, so a 2,000-lot equipment sale clears the cataloging pass in minutes rather than over several shifts. The manual comparison is stark: according to Estimint's cataloging analysis (2025), manual cataloging of a 200-lot sale takes 46 to 64 hours, roughly 14 to 19 minutes per lot including photography, description writing, and data entry. For more on running very large sales this way, see our notes on high-volume auction cataloging.

Step 2: Generate the Proxibid export

With the catalog built, Gavelist produces a Proxibid-formatted export. The columns are mapped to Proxibid's catalog fields, so you are not assembling a spreadsheet by hand or matching headers by trial and error. Proxibid's title fields are length-limited, and Gavelist's export fits the format, so titles are written to sit within Proxibid's limits instead of getting truncated on import.

The same catalog can be written to other formats as well. Gavelist exports to 10+ auction platforms, so the Proxibid file is one output among several built from a single cataloging pass. Running one sale across several marketplaces at once follows the same pattern, covered in how to list one auction on multiple platforms.

Step 3: Upload to Proxibid

Once the file is ready, import it through your Proxibid seller tools into the event you created earlier. Proxibid handles catalog ingestion on their side; the formatted export hands their importer a file that already matches the structure it expects, which keeps the upload routine rather than a reformatting exercise.

After importing, review the lots in Proxibid before the sale opens. Spot-check titles, lot numbers, and categories on a sample of lots, paying particular attention to longer equipment descriptions, to confirm everything came across.

Why catalog once and export, instead of locking into one marketplace

Listing through a single marketplace and cataloging inside its tools means repeating the cataloging work for every other channel. Cataloging once and exporting removes the repetition, and it also determines what you keep and where your lots can run.

Gavelist is platform-independent: catalog a lot once and export it to any of 10+ platforms, so the catalog is not bound to one marketplace. The fuller argument is in our analysis of platform-independent cataloging. Gavelist charges a flat per-lot cataloging price and takes 0% of your auction sales, so you keep 100% of the hammer, and the cataloging cost stays fixed regardless of final prices.

Compare that to a marketplace that takes a percentage of each sale. HiBid (AuctionFlex 360), for example, charges an online bidding fee of 2% of gross auction proceeds. That is a bidding-platform fee on sales, not a cataloging fee, and it sets up the real contrast: a marketplace that takes a percentage of what you sell, versus a cataloging tool that takes 0% and exports anywhere.

Gavelist pricing is flat and published: pay-as-you-go at $0.15 per lot, or monthly tiers: Auctioneer at $79 per month (up to 1,000 lots), Pro at $160 per month (up to 2,500 lots), and Enterprise at $250 per month (up to 5,000 lots). On a large equipment sale, the per-lot cost is known before the sale rather than scaling with the hammer.

The manual alternative carries recurring labor cost. According to AuctionMethod's 2026 Retail Liquidation Auction Industry report, manual cataloging benchmarks run from 20 to 40+ lots listed per employee-hour, with labor costs of $0.50 to $3.00 per lot. According to AIM (2025), manual auction cataloging throughput runs 15 to 25 lots per hour depending on item complexity and operator experience, at labor rates of $14 to $28 per hour. Those costs recur each time a catalog is rebuilt for another channel.

Value estimates for equipment lots (optional add-on)

Gavelist can attach a value estimate to each lot: a value tier plus an approximate low-and-high dollar range. For equipment and commercial inventory, the estimates are grounded in real sold prices (completed and sold listings and category references) rather than asking prices, so a used forklift or a pallet of fittings is benchmarked against what similar lots have actually sold for.

Value estimates are an optional add-on. They are not a certified appraisal. Use them as a likely, approximate range for cataloging and reserves, not as a guaranteed valuation or an equipment appraisal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I bulk upload a Gavelist catalog to Proxibid?

Yes. Gavelist produces a Proxibid-formatted export with columns mapped to Proxibid's catalog fields and titles written to fit Proxibid's length limits, so you import that single file through your Proxibid seller tools instead of building a spreadsheet by hand.

Does Gavelist take a cut of my Proxibid sales?

No. Gavelist charges a flat per-lot cataloging price and takes 0% of auction sales, so you keep 100% of the hammer. Any fees charged on Proxibid itself are separate and set by that platform.

How fast can Gavelist catalog a 2,000-lot equipment sale?

On the description pass, Gavelist catalogs about 1,000 lots in roughly 10 minutes, about 6,000 lots per hour, using 8 concurrent workers, so a 2,000-lot sale clears the cataloging pass in roughly 20 minutes. That pass produces titles, descriptions, and categories.

Can I export the same lots to LiveAuctioneers or HiBid too?

Yes. The same catalog exports to 10+ platforms. Confirmed formats include Proxibid, LiveAuctioneers, HiBid, and eBay, plus a generic CSV, so one cataloging pass can supply several marketplaces.

Sources

• The Insight Partners, "Auction Back-Office Software Market." theinsightpartners.com
• AuctionMethod, "Retail Liquidation Auction Industry Report (2026)." auctionmethod.com
• Estimint, "AI Auction Cataloging for Auction Houses." estimint.com
• Auction Item Manager, "Manual Cataloging Throughput and Cost Per Lot." aimhq.com