When times change, you need to change with them. And in order to stay relevant and successful, you need to do it swiftly and seamlessly. This was the message that was brought home to PMV Middle East by two senior officials of Ritchie Bros. during the global asset management and disposal company’s most recent auction in Dubai last month.
It was an auction with a difference, however – the online auction that has come to stay after the Covid 19 pandemic. Whereas back in the day the Ritchie Bros. premises used to be abuzz with people on auction days, that same buzz is still alive whenever the global auctioneer has its sales – only the venue of the excitement has moved to the virtual world, where Rithcie Bros. now brings people in the sector together at its sales online.
Starting in 2020, Ritchie Bros.’ auctions in Dubai have been online-only affairs, as they have been at the auctioneer’s other premises.
Explaining this bold new future that seems to have already arrived, Sam Wyant, President, International Sales at Ritchie Bros., and Shane Eshuis, Vice President, Operations International, point out that while this move to online auctions both gathered steam and was necessitated by Covid 19, Ritchie Bros. had already been offering this service since before the pandemic.
“We began the transition to offering online even before the pandemic. We spotted the trend early that our customer base and buyers had the willingness to adopt certain technologies and we’ve leveraged that across the globe for our operations,” says Wyant.
“And it’s really quite efficient in terms of how we leverage our online bidding technologies. The great news is that Ritchie Bros. has all the tools in its portfolio and the flexibility to use those tools in the various markets that we operate in, depending on the needs of local customers. We have many customers that like the online touch and bidding virtually – and they’ve given a very strong vote of confidence for our technology.”
Responding to market demands
Wyant says that Ritchie Bros. realises that over time, before its auctions went online, it has afforded customers the chance to come and connect and meet. However, as times change, so do preferences – and Ritche Bros. has always responded to the market’s demands.
“We actually held a sales event at our site in the Netherlands this fall and it was both physical and online auctions combined. But online auctions are here to stay – and rise – as customers become increasingly sure of the digital side of the business.
“I think we’ve seen a real shift in buyers’ confidence on the online bidding process. We’ve got more active online byers today than ever before. We’ve been working to grow our buyer base globally, so when we have a sale in a market like Dubai, we’re bringing in buyers from all over the world,” Wyant explains.
“They’re able to have confidence in the machines consigned to our sales and, as always, we still open our yards to customers for inspections. It’s quite busy on viewing days before auctions, so customers can have confidence on the units they are purchasing.”
Ritchie Bros. has also invested in technology that gives customers a better understanding of the shape that the equipment is in, Wyant adds, emphasising that this is vital for online auctions.
“With the enhancements that we have introduced, you get an accurate picture of the quality of the machines you wish to buy. There are still some people who want to come and kick the tyres, to put it that way, but our delivery to customers in our online format is better virtual descriptions and walk-arounds of machines using modern technology.”
Ritchie Bros. widens reach
With auctions having gone online and drawing in more and more people, this has only served to widen Ritchie Bros.’ outreach, added Eshuis, explaining that Ritchie Bros. has been making a huge push into the online space for a while now.
“We were online before Covid. We had, depending on the region, 50-plus percent of participants coming in online and an even higher percentage of bidders that were successful bidding online. Now everything is online,” Eshuis says.
Meanwhile, Ritchie Bros.’ has also widened its offerings to customers with products such as Iron Planet and its Marketplace-E facility. Explaining the ecosystem of offerings, Wyant says: “Each has its unique proposition, and as the largest industrial auctioneering company in the world, one of our core strengths is our buyer base.
“This gives sellers various opportunities, depending on their need for sales, to leverage the different channels that we have. Marketplace-E is one of those, where if a customer has a little bit more time, you can have an asset in that online world with a reserved price and be in a bit more control of the sale of that asset, while still leveraging our global buyer base. If you’re in need of quicker disposal of your assets then of course we’ve got both IronPlanet and Ritchie Brothers, which we feel are world class products.”
But with sales going online since the pandemic, Ritchie Bros. as an organisation has had to put in place some new practices and adopt new technologies to adapt to this change, and Wyant explains: “We’ve laid out several technology improvements. In 2023 we’ve launched and piloted virtual inspections where you can see the asset from different angles and get a very good understanding of the asset virtually. We’ve also introduced different bidding technology that allows for time extensions and allows you to maximise exposure to an asset, but also supports driving the best price for the seller.
“We’ve also done a lot on the buyers’ side, especially with things like search engine optimisation and enhancement to our websites to boost the visibility of assets that are available.”
With all these changes and the introduction of new tech features, it can be expected that educating buyers may have been a requirement, but Eshuis says that the process was fairly intuitive, perhaps because Ritchie Bros. had already been offering online solutions to its sellers, bidders and buyers for some time.
“It was just an extension of that and I don’t think our consignors and buyers required a lot of explanation. Having said that, sometimes we do over-explain, which is actually better than explaining less, but our buyer and bidder base is of course a tech savvy one. They are fairly used to online transaction of every sort – it’s an online generation anyways, nowadays. And they took to it like ducks to water.”
Explaining some of the features that Ritchie Bros. has imbibed from other industries, Eshuis says that facilities such as the virtual 360-degree inspections of units up for auction were inspired by other industries, such as the car industry.
“You have car inspections with cameras that take shots from all angles. We’ve adopted that, so we’re definitely looking at new ways to enhance our customer experience. Also the fact that we do not have the live auctions anymore means that we invest the money that would have gone into organising them into R&D for online auctions, looking to make the customer experience better online.
“Over the years the IT side or our operations has really grown tremendously as we’ve had to respond to the market trend of online auctions. And that’s an ongoing everyday adaption. It’s definitely showing in the numbers of bidders using our online services, which is increasing all the time. Of course, we never rest on our laurels and we’re striving to improve every day.”
Middle East important for Ritchie Bros.
When it comes to improvements, where does the Middle East, with its own set of conditions and customer behaviour, feature in Ritchie Bros.’ operations? Wyant emphasizes that it is a very important market for the company from both the supply and demand standpoints.
“We have at times a lot of assets coming to this market to be sold but then we also have the ability to use this market as a source market, too. So it’s a very important market for us. The regional economy is quite strong, which makes this an area of even greater strategic importance for us,” he says.
Eshuis adds that the importance of Dubai as a regional hub made it only the fifth physical auction site that Ritchie Bros. set up outside of North America. Over time, in the years following this, the company has established more sites in many more places around the world, which means that Ritchie Bros. customers now enjoy the option of having more sites nearer to them.
“However, it’s really important for us to stay in touch with our customers and listen to them. So we will continue to invest in that. How we do it varies from region to region. In the Middle East, personal interactions are still valued to a greater degree compared to Europe, where things are more virtual,” Eshuis elaborates.
“With Covid we’ve learnt never to say never. Things can change quickly. At Ritchie Bros. we respond to the market and let the market decide. Whatever the market tells us, we try to follow and implement that. This is what we owe to our customers.”
Wyant concludes: “The best thing that the reach of online auctions has done for us and for our customers – both sellers and buyers – is that it’s given them the opportunity to sell and bid at all auctions worldwide, no matter where they are located.”