Capital Equipment News April 2021

USED EQUIPMENT

In 2020, Ritchie Bros. saw website traffic increase by 35%.

“Shifting to online-only bidding has allowed us to attract new types of customers to our marketplace,” says Werner, noting that Ritchie Bros. has seen a rise in end-user participation in auctions, people such as construction equipment owner/operators, who in the past did not represent a large portion of participants at ‘live’ auctions. “Newer services, such as our Ritchie Bros.’ online Timed Auction system are making used equipment auctions more accessible, especially for smaller and medium-sized businesses. The Timed Auctions are intuitive and there’s more time to place bids,” adds Werner. Shift online accelerated The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated trends that were already well underway, including online bidding. In 2020, Ritchie Bros. saw website traffic increase by 35%, while bidder registrations were up by 71%. More than 470 000 new users downloaded the Ritchie Bros. mobile app, which is an increase of 78% compared to 2019. Throughout 2020, customers carried out more than 24-million equipment searches and viewed 30-million items in Ritchie Bros. mobile app. Today, mobile app users represent approximately 30% of the customers of rbauction.com. According to Werner, this shift to online transactions not only widens the market

for equipment buyers and sellers, it also creates new data insight opportunities. “Data is the new oil,” says Werner. “It’s becoming more and more valuable and obtainable every day. Not only does it help Ritchie Bros. but it also allows us to help our customers. We have a lot of data on used machinery transactions – we sell more machinery than any other company in the world – we can gather and present data to help our customers run their businesses more efficiently.” This sort of market insight opens new possibilities for equipment owners. They will be able to understand when the best time to sell or buy an asset is – depending on the machine type, hour usage, machine age and more. With the acquisition of data firm Rouse Services, Ritchie Bros. is on track to making this kind of tailored insight a reality for its global customer base. “This is a really exciting time in the industry,” says Werner. “Although the global pandemic has caused instabilities across all sectors, it has forced us to adapt the way we do business and accelerated remote working and online asset disposition. We don’t see this subsiding when restrictions are lifted. The future will most likely be a hybrid model giving our buyer and sellers access to a wider global market.” b

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