I'm certain Ritchie Bros. helped us achieve a bit of a premium through its marketing reach and reputation.
Brad Skelton got his international freight forwarding business off the ground in Australia with a little help from a Ritchie Bros. auction in Hong Kong. During a major business realignment, Brad put his trust in the same company that had put its trust in him.
[Ritchie Bros.] did everything possible to make the auction a success – from the advertising, to the presentation of the trucks, to the organization of the sale. The people at Ritchie Bros. know what they're doing. They have the systems in place to conduct an auction, in any location, and that made the whole experience straightforward, simple and painless.
At the end of a major project, the Scott Group – one of Australia's largest transportation companies – had 130 surplus transportation items and two options: Send the trucks out of state to be sold piecemeal – or have Ritchie Bros. bring the auction to the Scott Group's site and sell everything in one day.
Go to Ritchie Bros.: that's my advice to anyone wanting to sell trucks and trailers.
For Denis and Louis Larabie of Kapuskasing, Ontario, a fortuitous wrong turn led to a major trucking contract with the De Beers diamond company. At the end of the contract, the Larabie brothers had almost 150 trucks and trailers to sell – and a new appreciation for unreserved auctions.
You go to other auctions and there are maybe one hundred people. You go to a Ritchie Bros. auction and there are two thousand. What does that tell you?
When the state economy took a downturn in the early 2000s, John Spadaro needed to sell millions of dollars of equipment belonging to his trucking company in Melbourne, Australia. John decided to check out a new auction company in town: Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers. And he's never looked back.
The internet brought a lot more people to the auction. It helped with the prices, but I don't think it will ever replace having a real auction. There's still a desire to kick the tires. People like to look at what they're buying and check the mechanical condition of a machine for themselves.
Frank Rizzardo built his B.C.-based highway maintenance business from one contract to six. The equipment fleet of Emcon Services grew at the same pace. When Emcon's business dropped by almost half, Frank needed to sell millions of dollars of equipment – at a fair price.