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So, as some of you may know I took the leap to full time recently. This has freed up a lot of time and am looking to get more into the auction scenes (again). I’ve been to many, many auctions and most of those are Saturday morning estate auctions. Those are obviously hit and miss, even when they list photos and detailed descriptions (I am rarely in the market for their listed items as they tend to go high). I, like Jay, Ryanne and Steve, are more into box lots. I have done very well with those in the past and tend to always find treasures for, usually, very little cost.
Estate auctions here in Kentucky are on primarly Saturday. There are auction houses that have sales almost every day somewhere within a short driving distance from me. I’ve been to one auction house nearby and it tends to be a “reg” fest. Assigned seats for regulars, lots of junk, slow selling (runs from 6pm until after midnight on a Friday night). I have bought a few things at this one, but just not enough to make the time worth it. Are there particular weekday auctions I should be looking for? Is there another or better site to use than AuctionZip?
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There’s liveauctioneers but that’s really upscale, and proxibid which leans upscale. My experience is that unfortunately AuctionZip is the best site for local type auctions. Other things I have done to find auctions are Google and Google Maps searches. Of course the best auctions for buying are often the ones that have the most limited online presence. In some states the auctioneer licensing departments can provide lists of auctioneers. Not all licensed auctioneers are active and some only do real estate or industrial equipment for example but you can contact them and see what they do.
It is a shame that so many auctions out there are complete wastes of time. Other than calling and trying to get a feel for their style, sometimes you just have to go and see for yourself. The type you’re calling the “reg” crowd I call “entertainment” auctions. Just a form of local entertainment, like bingo.
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Check to see if there are pallet liquidation/ salvage / bid sales in your area. This is my current auction compromise. We have a bid sale here weekly with 5,000+ items in a warehouse. You wander around, make bids and hand in your sheet at end. I know some places do this live, too.
Sadly, I lost out on a pallet I was so mad about. I underbid by about 80%. Had it been “live” I may have been caught up in the fray of excitement, but then I probably would go over budget. 🙂
Then you come back the next day to collect -
This is an area we are looking to move into. Trying to solve two issues:
1) Sourcing more efficiently (and as much as possible, from anywhere)
2) Sourcing items with higher ASP, but still with at least a 3X ROIWhen we get back from eBay Open, this is one of three major projects I want to conquer.
bcfol440: Did you just Google your area to find this liquidations in your area?
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T-Statt: Sort of… They have a huge retail salvage store (which is also good for RA sourcing on some thing like clothing) and they also do the bid sale. So, if you know of some liquidation stores/ salvage stores see if they do an auction. Other keywords are “orphaned, recovery, salvage” – it’s a new vocab for me. People drive from all over to go to this weekly.
I have joined some Product Sourcing facebook groups as well to look at pallets, however, the minimums and margins are tough. I can’t really spend $5,000 on purses at once to hold onto it for a year? I just don’t have enough cash. They lots are fully manifested though. Whereas ^ bid sale above they are not, so it’s buried treasure. So much to consider in this arena too, but the idea of big bulk buy of NWT items is very appealing!
Look forward to continuing the conversation when you get back from Open. -
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Thanks for the tips, guys/gals. I am going to look into some of the auction houses around here and pop in for a sale or two of each one to see how they operate, the kind of stuff they have and how the crowd looks/buys and try to find the best one or two and go from there. I am also going to start hitting an auction on Saturday’s after yard sales for the box lots. I have yet to get over 1000 listings on ebay due to stuff selling and not having the time to source for more than 5 hours a week. I want to be pumped and primed for Q4 and really start pushing to see what I can do.
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