Elders Kingston livestock agent Nick Downward, left, with branch manager Greg Cobiac with the AuctionsPlus award.

ELDERS Kingston South East branch in South Australia has scored a double in the annual AuctionsPlus throughput awards – winning the top sheep assessor and agency awards for 2011-2022.

Branch manager Greg Cobiac has been recognised as the top AuctionsPlus sheep throughput assessor of sheep and the agency had the highest national sheep throughput for the year.

It is the second consecutive year that the Elders Kingston SE team has won the sheep throughput award.

AuctionsPlus said Greg has been using the platform since the late 1980and has been based at Elders in Kingston since 2005.

Greg said he supported AuctionsPlus as the biggest saleyard in Australia.

“It reaches many agents and producers at home on the internet, on their mobile phones in their utes or motorbikes in the paddock or on their summer vacation.”

“I would like to thank our AuctionsPlus listing vendors for offering livestock on their behalf over many years.

“Certainly a lot of effort is required to get all of the livestock drafted, assessed, photographed and input into the AuctionsPlus system by the weekly deadlines,” he said.

Greg said in years past he and other Elders agents in the region would conduct AuctionsPlus sales centrally, either at the town hall, bowls club or at the local Elders branch.

“We would gather up 10-15 clients selling a combined 5000-10,000 head of sheep back at the Elders branch up on a big screen.

“It was difficult in the beginning, farmers were reluctant to buy stock based on stats alone, they needed to see and touch the stock to trust the sale,” he said.

“Vendors were also difficult to come by and it was only the newer generation of farmers and the more progressive early adopters that where comfortable to give this new way of selling a try.’

The platform has grown, and in 2021-2022 it offered more than 4.5 million sheep and lambs with more than 138,000 users registering to bid.

Greg said the Elders Kingston SE branch has sold stock to far north Queensland, Tasmania, places that wouldn’t have otherwise heard of Kingston, South Australia.

Greg Cobiac is a level 1 assessor for AuctionsPlus and also trains other Elders staff in the use of the platform. He believes his success is built on trust. When entering in an assessment his advice to new users is to describe the stock how you hope to receive them.

Elders Kingston SE client Angas Brinkworth operates a large-scale mixed farming operation in south-east South Australia and is a long-time client of Greg who often sells stock via AuctionsPlus.

“My dad sold on AuctionsPlus back in the early days when it was known as ‘CALM’ and I use it still today.

“The platform has grown a lot of confidence with buyers and sellers alike and opens up a much wider platform for us to market our stock to.”