There are many options out there for selling your used heavy equipment: auctions, private sale, dealers, brokers and more. To help decide which is the best method, you should ask yourself the following questions:
1. How fast do you need the money?
Auctions require time to market to their audience so depending on the consignment requirements it could take up to 30 days prior to receiving the payment.
The timeframe for selling the machine privately is completely dependent on the sale price. There is not a standardized method of pricing available to the general public so you will need to do research to determine the fair market value.
Dealers can offer quick solutions on trade-ins but the values are substantially lowers than private sales or auctions.
Brokers are companies that simply market your equipment, so the timeframe for selling is dependent on their buyer base.
Wholesalers can typically pay within 24 – 48 hours and can usually pay you a higher sale price.
2. What does it cost to sell your machine?
For Auctions, you need to find out what the seller’s fees are, to include any administration or titling fees. Most auction companies charge from 2% – 13% of the sale price. Auctions typically offer higher sale prices because the overseas buyers are driving up the buy prices. You just need to weigh out the seller’s fees to see if this method makes sense.
For Private Sales, it usually is just an ad fee, but you also have to weigh in how much time you want to allocate to speaking or meeting with buyers. What is your time worth?
For Dealers, depending on the dealership and the cost of the new machine, the trade-in values are typically 30% – 50% lower than a fair market value. The benefit is that the dealer is creating a turn key solution with no downtime between machines.
Brokers are companies that simply market your equipment, so they typically build their commission into the sale price.
Wholesalers will typically pay you 5% – 10% lower than fair market value and pay quickly.
