Product photos 8x faster thanks for ALPHASHOT? No problem.

The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (in Polish: Wielka Orchestra Świątecznej Pomocy, WOŚP) has “played” for the 25th time this year. Despite the fact that the official summary of the event is still ahead of us, two records have already been broken: in nearly 119,000 auctions held on the aukcje.wosp.org.pl website GOCC has collected over 9 million zloty. Last year’s record has been broken by nearly 100%! Who (and what) is behind the success?

GOCC – more than the Grand Finale

For millions of Polish people the GOCC is the Grand Finale, held on the frosty Sunday in January. However, the auctions held on aukcje.wosp.org.pl begin in December and end in mid-February. For the team of just three employees, as well as the supporting volunteers of the Peace Patrol who worked on organising the auctions, those weeks were filled with titanic work. However, the work is always in full swing even before the auctions begin – working against the clock our team prepares thousands of objects to be put up for auction. And with the growing support for GOCC the number of those objects is constantly increasing.

Polish citizens bid online

Online auctions became a form of raising funds for GOCC in 2001. Every year the number of donors putting up their objects for online auctions to raise funds for GOCC is higher. Sixteen years ago GOCC raised a little less than 113.5 thousand zloty, whilst today the amount exceeds 8.5 million zloty. It is a record-breaking amount, especially because it is nearly double the amount raised last year (4.5 million). Finally it was 9 141 390,87 plz.

See GOCC auctions online: http://aukcje.wosp.org.pl

Auctions from the inside

The growing popularity of online auctions translates directly into the work of the team responsible for them. Every year the number of extraordinary objects donated by our supporters is higher and thus the amount of work increases.
This year the task which the GOCC Auction Department had to face might seem impossible to perform – there were 1,800 various objects which needed to be photographed, such as sculptures, jewellery, coins, crystals, celebrities’ props, athletes’ shoes, T-shirts with autographs and many others. In order to prepare the auctions it was necessary to take nearly 5.5 thousand photos!

When you’re at your wits’ end… use innovative technology

Extraordinary auctions require extraordinary solutions. This year an original supporter joined the Orchestra: ALPHASHOT XL PRO – a flagship device for product photography manufactured by Orbitvu automated product photography . Its task was to make the process of taking photos faster and more efficient while maintaining top quality photographs and ensuring consistency, regardless of the type of the object being photographed.

Time is money – every minute counts

Has it worked out well? – We are happy about the fact that the time of work has been shortened, that the studio area which we needed in the previous years could be reduced and we are satisfied with the quality of photos – says Marlena Kuczko, Coordinator of the GOCC Auction Department. – ALPHASHOT XL PRO reduced the time of photographing a single object by over eight times – from 25 minutes to as few as 3. With such a result it is hard to believe that all photos were taken by just …two people!!

Love at first shot

Speed of work, possibility of uploading the photo to a selected place on a server directly after editing it, automatically adding a watermark, selection of various resolutions – these are the greatest advantages which have won the hearts of the Orchestra’s Auction Department team. The employees have also expressed appreciation for cooperation with Orbitvu’s support department. – We would like to work with ALPHASHOT in the following years, too – says Marlena.

Record-breaking auctions

Without donors there would be no more great finales, no more hospitals would receive state-of-the-art equipment and we would hear no more stories about recovering patients. This year the bidders offered astronomical amounts, e.g. for the photograph of Agata Duda greeting the bishops during the World Youth Day (the sum offered for the photograph amounted to PLN 200,000) and for the opportunity to visit the seat of the European Council in Brussels in the company of Donald Tusk (over PLN 370,000). More than 49,000 auctions were held for the benefit of the Orchestra (including over 2,200 put up by the GOCC Auction Department). From December to February thousands of bidders, donors and volunteers transcended divisions to make their contribution to the spectacular result achieved by the Orchestra.

March 7th at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Jurek Owsiak announced the final result of the Jubilee Final WOŚP: 105 570 801, 49 zł. This is the highest amount collected in the 25-year history of the Orchestra.