He said freight cost-savings gave price premiums of $20 to $40 a head for cattle and $2-$3/hd for sheep.

"That's the premium – saving on the freight," Mr Cobiac said.

It gave buyers an opportunity to operate on stock without having to travel hundreds of kilometres.

"It has been building-up in popularity for the past three to four years," he said.

"Buyers have now become more accustomed to the system and realise they can rely on the description of weights and condition of stock being sold, as this is all carried out by accredited assessors."

Mr Cobiac said his branch had four regular AuctionsPlus vendors, including Watervalley at Kingston – one of the biggest users of the system.

So far this year, he had sold 30,000 sheep and 3000 cattle on AuctionsPlus.

"It costs vendors 56 cents a sheep and $5.60 a head of cattle to put their stock online, and they also need to pay the usual levies and agents commission," he said.

Nationally, since January 1 about 150,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep and lambs had been put through the system, an increase in throughput of 15 per cent for cattle and 40pc for sheep and lambs on the previous year.

* Extract from a full report in Stock Journal, November 27 issue.