Who is handling the general surplus now that GL is out?

DeadParrot said:

The odd thing about the high starting bid prices is according to the wiki entry for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, they are really big into no reserve auctions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritchie_Bros._Auctioneers

Wonder if they spent too much buying Iron Planet and are trying to recover the costs? Still think they can't sit on the stuff too long or the piles will exceed storage area.

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They split hairs and don't consider a minimum opening bid to be a reserve. Obviously it's another way to accomplish the same thing.

Mostly what I'm seeing is opening prices best described as retail, but they're willing to let someone else pay more to take it away from you.

Then they occasionally throw something out with a low opening price to gauge the market and also for marketing purposes. Those few with the low opener are the ones that scroll on their banner ads. (These serve the same purpose as loss leaders at the supermarket or bait cars at the dealership.)

Thing is, without at least the occasional deal to be had people like me get out of the habit of watching the auctions. Maybe the idea is that I'm not profitable to them, but I've paid more than anyone else for any M129A4 and I've been outbid by one bid multiple times on many items. So having me in the game has certainly made a difference in prices...

I'm actually funded at the moment (sold three welders this spring), but I haven't been watching the auctions lately.

They don't learn! I was watching a transmission but the opening bid was 400.00! Not even close to worth it for surplus and I guess nobody else thought so either since nobody bid on it. Well I just get a notification, [The item you added to your Watch List are now in preview and ready for bidding]. They carried it over from when I was watching it before and relisted it, AT THE SAME PRICE!!!!! Want to bet there are no bids again? I wonder how much other stuff they are doing the exact same thing with? And by the way, that is a quote directly from their e-mail to me complete with bad grammar. Chinese maybe? LOL.

From what I see the days of deals are over. Some stuff has okay opening prices, some stuff is about twice what its worth. But deals? No longer!

The last batch of, local for me, MBUs from GL came out of Chambersburg Pa. They went for $200 for eight of them. That is before fees and what not. GP has been listing them out of Chambersburg, Pa. The sale this week had a starting bid of $2500 for ten. The bid for both lots were unsuccessful. Now remember these are not NOS units and as the listing says, **The photos in this report are representative photos. The actual item received may vary**. They have added the ones that didn’t sell back to my watch list with a price of TBD.

Someone in GP needs to take a look at the pricing, for no one is benefiting from what is happening at this time.

After a lot of scrolling I finally found one interesting lot. A veterinarian set in four field medical cases. Starting bid is $2525.00 so not for the average surplus collector. Then I saw this at the end "No Loading Dock, Ramps, or Forklift Available: Only RGN or trailers with ramps can be used to pick up this item at this location. Seller will not allow item to be loaded on a step-deck or flatbed trailer without the appropriate ramps". What is this all about? I could throw this in the back of my pickup. If I show up without a ramp am I going to be turned away? I would post a link but I assume that is still against the rules.

They have nothing of interest to me ever. I look often but the result remains, no joy.

Michael said:

After a lot of scrolling I finally found one interesting lot. A veterinarian set in four field medical cases. Starting bid is $2525.00 so not for the average surplus collector. Then I saw this at the end "No Loading Dock, Ramps, or Forklift Available: Only RGN or trailers with ramps can be used to pick up this item at this location. Seller will not allow item to be loaded on a step-deck or flatbed trailer without the appropriate ramps". What is this all about? I could throw this in the back of my pickup. If I show up without a ramp am I going to be turned away? I would post a link but I assume that is still against the rules.

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That is just the standard spiel that they give for all pick ups. Basically it covers them if you show up in a Prius to pick up that milling machine, Not their problem. If you can't get it then you default. I have never seen anywhere that did not have a forklift to help load the larger items. Unless you are talking a huge multi truck load of stuff.

All that said my guess is that those items you are looking at are far from complete and probably not worth anywhere near the asking price. I am not a vet so I don't know.

This is totally amazing! The transmission I looked at months ago and naturally did not sell at the exorbitant opening price came up again and was offed to me the following month, At the same crazy price. Well guess what? No offers again. And NOW............................................... Yup, you got it, same transmission, same crazy opening bid and it will be the same end game I am sure. What about you other guys? Are you getting these notices for stuff you looked at and didn't bite on? Same crazy opening bids each time? Have they sold anything since Richie took over?
I don't even go to the site anymore. Not worth the time to get aggravated.

I don't know what the field ranges are supposed to go for but think about it. They have got to be swamped with equipment that is not selling due to the high minimum bids. Maybe this is the beginning of prices starting to drop?

LanceRobson said:

If you noticed, the first ammo cans sold on Iron Planet last week went so high it makes me wonder whether they used shill bidders to set a high bar on prices. M2 "50 Cal" cans went for just shy of $10 each (216 cans/$2025) before buyer's premium and tax and some M548 cans (the BIG 25mm 100 round linked cannon ammo cans) went for over $30 each.


Lance

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I believe Iron Planet is shill bidding in Arizona.