How Industrial Manufacturing Auctions are Changing How People Buy and Sell Machinery

Auctions are a great way to sell a large number of items quickly. They’re often used in factory closures or business liquidations where there’s a lot to sell and it’s important to get the best price possible. Historically though, they’ve not worked so well for anyone with just one or a few machines to sell.

The modern auction process addresses this problem and it’s changing how people buy and sell industrial machinery.

There’s a Healthy Market for Used Industrial Machinery

Equipment sales let businesses turn surplus machines or assets that are no longer needed into cash. They’re often used in liquidations when there’s a lot of equipment to sell in a short time. For buyers, these sales are an opportunity to upgrade or replace aging machines or expand capacity. For example:

• A manufacturer needs particular piece of equipment but has limited funds available
• A new product will have a relatively short life
• A business wants to replace an item with the exact same thing but it’s no longer available new
• The lead time on new equipment is too long

Buying and Selling Without Auctions

The alternatives to auctions are working with used machinery dealers, online advertising, and advertising in and reading catalogs of used equipment. These work for some buyers and sellers but compared with auctions they’re slow and they don’t answer the question of what’s a fair price. They also tend to be expensive, they don’t make it easy to find what you’re looking for, and it can be hard to get a detailed picture of what condition the equipment is in.

How Auctions Are Changing the Buying and Selling Process

Farmers have sold livestock and produce at auctions for generations. However, they rely on bringing buyers and sellers together in one place. For industrial equipment that approach only really works when there’s a lot to be sold. Factory closures and business liquidations are examples.

One of the limitations to this type of auction is the need to travel to view what’s being offered. (Some buyers use agents to represent them at the auction.) Another is that sellers wanting to dispose of just one or two items need a way to add their items to a bigger collection that will draw more buyers. This is where changes are happening.

Today industrial equipment auctions are held online. Sellers can offer the contents of an entire factory or as few pieces as suits their needs. It doesn’t matter where the individual items are located and there’s no limit to the number of buyers that can attend or where they can be.

Well run online industrial equipment auctions provide exhaustive descriptions of the items being sold, along with photos and sometimes even video. The web pages are searchable by criteria such as equipment category, type and brand, which makes it easy to see if a specific item is being offered. Most importantly, the bidding process is open and transparent so buyers can see they’re not paying more than they need.

The Equipment Hub Industrial Machinery Auctions

Auctions meet the needs of many buyers and sellers and they’re changing how people buy and sell machinery. We conduct frequent auctions that bring these groups together through our website. If you’re interested in selling equipment at auction we can help, and if you’d like to see equipment for sale, view our list of upcoming auctions.