(Twitter/@RitchieBros)

By Alice McFarlane

Equipment Auctions

Company makes temporary changes to its spring auctions

Mar 23, 2020 | 3:55 PM

An auctioneering company is changing the way it conducts business in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers will be moving to an online only bidding process for the time being.

Western Canada Sales Director Jordan Clark said there will be no on-site bidding for three months:

“We decided to move all our spring sales in March, April and May to an online only bidding aspect. Typically we were online and on site and were very closely following the mass gathering restrictions that were in place province to province,” he said. “As they’ve changed day to day we’ve had to change too. A new decision is we will have no on site bidding at any of our farm or consignment sales in March, April and May.”

Clark said it was important to make the decision quickly with the first sales starting tomorrow.

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“Our first sale for the region will be Tuesday, March 24 with the Regina consignment sale. And further on this week on Thursday, March 26 we will be at Lethbridge at that consignment sale. The following week we start our farm auctions in southern Alberta,” he said. “The season really kicks off the last week in March for our farm auction season. We’ll start in Alberta. Then the following week, we’re rolling in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. We have 58 farm auctions in March, April and May, including industrial offsite sales in Manitoba in the early part of May, so all sales will be affected.”

Clark doesn’t believe it’s a change that will catch people off guard.

“We’ve been implementing an online process for over 15 years on these auction sales and typically over 73 per cent, I think, sells online, or the runner up is online, so a lot of people are quite accustomed to the online bidding method,” he said “For those that typically attend on site to bid, that won’t be an option anymore. We’re instructing all bidders to go to rbauction.com if they haven’t yet and register with an online account to be able to access every one of our sales.”

Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers is the world’s largest auctioneer of heavy equipment and trucks.

In 2018, the company sold $4.96 billion of used equipment and other assets.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF