Torks is a premium precision engineering service operating in Auckland and Christchurch. They operate state-of-the-art machinery and have highly skilled staff producing high grade engineering products. With the purchase of long time Christchurch engineering firm McClay Tooling, Torks had a range of surplus machines that needed to be sold. Skylarc were approached to maximise the return on these machines.
The Challenge
orks surplus equipment consisted of two very tidy Haas vertical machining centres, several lathes, milling machines, an EDM machine and a wide range of smaller machines. The former McClay premises had been leased and the machines needed to be sold and removed within a fairly short time, Torks also had machinery they were retaining and moving to their new premises so working in with their movements was also critical.
The Process
Skylarc organised the cleaning of all machinery to present the assets to the highest standard. Skyarc described, photographed and videoed all machinery to maximise buyer confidence. The auction consisted of 180 lots with a setup time of one week. The auction ran online for ten days. Buyer collections ran for one week and operated by a strict appointment schedule to ensure a controlled number of people onsite for security and health and safety.
Marketing
A comprehensive plan to sell all assets via an online Trade Me event was produced backed by a detailed marketing plan incorporating email outs to Skylarc’s own and engineering industry mailing lists and a targeted Facebook campaign which reached over 126,000 people and saw over 18,000 people visit the auction site. A landing page featuring information about the auction was published in all marketing and this linked onto the auction once it was listed on Trade Me.
The Result
The auction ran for 10 days and consisted of 180 lots, final turnover was in line with initial estimated sale return and the building was exited in a timely manner. Many of the larger machines were shipped throughout New Zealand with Skylarc shipping both vertical machining centres to the North Island showing that by providing comprehensive shipping options for buyers to conveniently get their machines maximises a vendors return by providing a much wider audience.