The Evolution of Auctions:
Highway
by Mike Anderson
Open for
Bids
t may be April Fool’s Day, but the movement of construction equipment on this day is certainly no joke.
April 1, 2010 is, after all, a Thursday … and that means iron users, sellers, buyers and speculators from Lima, Ohio to Lima, Peru, from Dubuque to Dubai, are watching their computer screens flash back at them every time a member of their industry brethren clicks a new bid on a ripper-equipped chunk of earthmoving beef otherwise known as a 2002 Caterpillar D8R II dozer. The granddaddy of Internet equipment auction companies, IronPlanet hosts a live “Featured Auction” at least each Thursday, when hundreds of excavators, wheel loaders, pavers, dump trucks and other types of construction equipment, attachments and parts are up for bids. For mainline pieces of equipment, generally anywhere from seven to 10 are opened for bids at once, every six minutes, and each machine will stay on the board at a minimum until the next group goes live. Popular equipment will stay up for 15-20 minutes. The Texas-based Cat D8R II, requiring an opening bid of $110,000, stays open for bids for 24 minutes, drawing 39 bids, topped off by one for $174,000 by a bidder in Mexico. “What we generally like to tell our