Every machine has its term of useful life – when your heavy equipment outlives this term, it’s best to consider selling it. Here are three reasons to consider selling your used or surplus heavy equipment:

  • To recover some value from the equipment you no longer need
  • To save maintenance fees that arise from operating and maintaining older machinery equipment
  • To pass on unused machinery to new owners who need it and prevent unnecessary wastage of functional equipment. You would also contribute to reducing the environmental burden this way

Selling heavy equipment is not an easy task and requires time and expertise. Here are some quick tips to consider when selling heavy equipment online.

6 Top Strategies for Selling Heavy Machinery Online

Deciding to sell heavy equipment online is a great way to contribute to resource optimization and ready your real estate for future equipment. It’s essential to chalk out a guideline that directs the process of marketing and sales – it also helps you get access to the maximum number of the right buyers.

1) Assess the Equipment You Own

The first rule of thumb when selling heavy equipment is to conduct an audit of the equipment your facility owns. An audit helps you determine the following factors:

  • The age of your equipment and the depreciation that it has undergone over the years
  • Maintenance schedule and records that need to be furnished for sale
  • The functional efficacy of your equipment
  • The remaining service life of your equipment
  • The extent of damage and the scope of the repair work necessary, if the damage is discovered
  • Whether parts of the machinery are missing or have been replaced during the course of its use, along with the details of the make of the parts replaced and date of replacement

2. Market the Sale on the Right Channels

Creating a strategic marketing plan for the sale of heavy equipment is an essential step to achieving a successful sale. Listed below are a few tips to get more interested buyers on board to buy the machinery you wish to sell.

  • Targeted emails: Emails are an excellent way to reach your buyers. If your business already has a newsletter with subscribers, you can set up an email list to notify subscribers of upcoming sales or auctions. It helps you spread the word over one more channel. Additionally, your subscribers can then spread the word further. If you haven’t already, do set up an emailing list to benefit from its marketing prowess.
  • Explore LinkedIn: LinkedIn is another online melting pot for professionals from various industries who share their expertise and news. It’s a great resource to advertise equipment sales over your network. Since LinkedIn is technically social media, it can help you spread the word amongst the people in your network fairly quickly.
  • Select the right platform: One of the best ways to sell heavy equipment quickly is to choose the right platform for marketing. Based on the buyer base, urgency, demand, and other factors, you have a wide spread of choices in terms of the marketing platform. You can effectively leverage mass outreach tools like instant messaging and bulk email lists or use print media to run your ads for some time. You can use your company’s social media channels to gain attention or post ads on your personal social profiles as well.

If you’re not confident about taking up the task of marketing to sell machinery online, you can simply sign up on a trustworthy online marketplace like Aucto

3. Consider Online Auctions

Auctions have become an extremely popular way to sell heavy equipment online today. In fact, in a report by Technavio, it has come to light that the online auction industry for hard assets is increasing at a compounded annual growth rate of 21.55% (2021 to 2026).

Online auctions allow highly interested buyers to look at your equipment and bid for it. You get access to buyers with an urgency, which increases the chances of you successfully completing a sale.

Furthermore, online auctions give you a chance to sell heavy equipment for a desirable price, which helps you get a good recovery price for your equipment.

4. Facilitate Digital Paperwork and Transactions

Digital transformation hasn’t left any business untouched. It has the potential to streamline the sales process for your business. If you haven’t already, digitize all the paperwork and records of your equipment to make it easier for your buyers to study them during online sales/auctions.

You can use centralized cloud data storage to further expedite the sales process by eliminating the time required for “paperwork” to change hands. You can present your equipment in 360° views online during the sale/auction, helping your buyers reach a more informed decision. 

5. Provide as much details as possible

In order to sell your used heavy machinery effectively, you need to provide the potential buyers with as much information as possible. The more information you can provide to a buyer on your equipment, the more comfortable and therefore more likely a buyer will be to submit a competitive bid. 

When selling heavy equipment on an online marketplace such as Aucto, you should provide an in-depth description on every aspect of your equipment. Many times, this descriptions is the only resource that online buyers get access to to understand the capabilities of the equipment you’re selling. Describe the equipment in a way that covers the following details:

  • The machinery specs
  • Mileage or hours on the machine
  • How long you’ve used it for
  • Its physical condition
  • Technical information
  • Maintenance information

6. Perform Market and Buyer Research

Sales will always be more effective when you know what you’re stepping into. In order to set your expectations right, it’s essential to do thorough research on the people who are buying heavy equipment.

Based on the demand and prevailing prices for the kind of equipment you wish to sell, you can set a realistic price for the sale. It’ll also help you arrive at acceptable terms and conditions for the sale.

If you study the market closely, you’ll discover that buyers tend to gravitate to used machinery rather than new equipment. The reason is simple: a high financial investment is involved, and reusing equipment that’s in good condition doesn’t hurt.

Contrary to the popular belief that used equipment is risky business, you will find that used industrial assets are actually quite good in condition.

This is because used equipment is traded more readily and available easily through online marketplaces like Aucto for a price that is justifiable for the seller as well as the buyer. This helps you save a lot of money. New equipment is purchased only when it is absolutely necessary and a facility cannot make do with a used one.

Aucto Helps You Sell Heavy Equipment Simply

Aucto is a leading online marketplace that helps you quickly recover costs from surplus machinery sitting idle at your facilities. We make the entire process of selling industrial equipment easy and straightforward through a streamlined sales process.

Selling heavy equipment with Aucto is as simple as 1-2-3. All you need to do is provide us with a list of assets you wish to sell. Once we receive that list our team of experts will set-up the sale for you and attract buyers to your sale, allowing you to sell your equipment in 17 days with minimal effort.

To learn more about where to sell used heavy equipment, visit Aucto.

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About the Author

Clayton Arnold

Clayton Arnold is the Marketing Manager at Aucto. Clayton has 10 years of experience working in traditional and digital marketing campaigns. A Mohawk College graduate, Clayton believes in leveraging the latest technology & analytics to foster long-term relationships with clients.