Ritchie Bros. Orlando Auction Expected to Be Its Biggest of Year
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Ritchie Bros. auction here Feb. 20-24 is scheduled to be the company’s biggest of the year, putting up for bid 10,092 pieces of industrial-based equipment arrayed side-by-side across more than 200 acres and including hundreds of Class 8 and medium-duty trucks, company executives said.
The trucks are supported by a raft of value-added services that are attracting small-fleet buyers and owner-operators in growing numbers, the company said.
Ritchie Bros. — the world’s largest industrial auctioneer — offers truck buyers warranties, insurance, buyer financing, appraisals and refurbishing services for vehicles sold under its policy of no minimum bids or reserve prices.
Everything would be sold, either to a buyer onsite or online as it was also simultaneously streamed live on the company’s website, rbauction.com, the company said. For this event, which the company called its Super Bowl, there were 10,000 registered bidders from 80 countries evaluating items offered by 1,129 sellers from 25 countries.
“Since the presidential election, there is stable consignment demand [for trucks], it is a little more predictable and there is stable buyer demand. It seems we went through a bit of turmoil last year [with truck prices], but so far this year has been fairly stable,” said Jake Lawson, senior vice president of sales at Richie Bros., a publicly traded company based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“When we look at the buying audience for a lot of our trucks, they have changed over the last five years. Historically, a lot of our buyers were brokers and dealers, who will buy at the auction and resell,” Lawson said.
Whereas it once was 50-50, it has progressed much more heavily to the end users, he added.
Roger W. Gilroy/Transport Topics 