Steering Bonhams into a new market

We helped famed auction house Bonhams to reach a wider audience with the launch of a dedicated classic cars site:

  • Fast entry into a new market
  • Low-cost operating model
  • Self-service features for frictionless user experience
Classic car for auction, Bonhams

The challenge

Bonhams is one of the world’s largest and most renowned auctioneers of fine art, antiques, motor cars, and jewellery.

The international auction house initially engaged Inviqa to design, develop, and implement a complete rebrand for the main global website in order to meet a key initiative on its digital roadmap.

The success of this engagement surfaced a clear opportunity for the business’ motoring department, which is famous for auctioning rare and highly collectable motor cars in conjunction with some of the most prestigious motoring events around the world. 

The Bonhams motor car department was unable to support the auction and sales of more modern and modestly priced collectors’ vehicles, so was looking for a new, low-cost operating model to bring Bonhams’ heritage to this competitive market.

The business needed to develop an MVP that would:

  • Allow Bonhams to rapidly enter the mid-market motorcar collectors’ market
  • Operate a lower-cost business model, with self-serve and automation
  • Leverage Bonhams values through a distinct offering and associated brand
  • Enable vehicle sellers to upload information and digitally submit their vehicles for consideration by Bonhams specialists

Thanks to the great work we had already delivered on the Bonhams website redesign, Inviqa was chosen to design and deliver the new motor car site.

What we did

In just five weeks, the Inviqa team designed, built, and launched a dedicated website for Bonhams new proposition, Bonhams MPH.

The MVP maintains a similar look and feel to the main Bonhams site but provides a differentiated offering for those in the market to auction their vehicles.

The website couples a powerful CMS, based on Drupal 8, with ecommerce functionality, powered by Drupal Commerce, enabling sellers to learn about the service, submit their vehicles for consideration, track progress, view upcoming auctions, and pay upfront fees – all via a unified digital touchpoint. 

On the backend, the Bonhams team is able to review and update submitted vehicles using the admin console, digitising key parts of the workflow and driving time and cost savings.

    woman and man looking at car on a desktop
    red car on a phone screen

    Our work included:

    • Drupal 8 site build and customisation
    • Rebuilding the Drupal 8 Worldpay integration module
    • Developing a scalable platform that other teams within the business can leverage
    • Utilising the Drupal Commerce module to create a multi-stage submission form
    • Implementing a backend console and ecommerce payment gateway

    The results

    It’s early days, but we have rapidly delivered a platform that’s enabling Bonhams to reach new audiences within the highly competitive classic cars market, with a low-cost operating model.

    vintage cars in a row