Bloore and pillar are a leading provider of foundry and component manufacturing services based in Taranaki. They manufacture a wide range of products including the Cambian line of knife steels used in meat processing plants throughout New Zealand. With the purchase of a new sand reclamation system space was needed within the factory to install it. Skylarc were assigned the task of selling a wide range of older plant and machinery that had been gathered over the years to free up space.
The Challenge
As with many engineering firms that have operated for as long as Bloore and Pillar, they had collected up a large amount of older machinery and tooling which had been used for previous projects but was no longer required in their current operation. These included a set of 3 meter 40 ton Sertom plate rollers, A Hitachi CNC Lathe, A Kiwa CNC Machining Center, a Perkins spectrometer and a huge volume of older tooling and engineering sundries. The site was large and complex and many of the older machines were located in storage areas which were initially inaccessible and required a significant amount of work to access. New Zealand was also in the midst of the Covid 19 crisis and part way through the initial setup week, the second level 4 lockdown was announced requiring Skylarc’s team to return to their home bases for isolation.
The Process
Skylarc cleaned machinery where possible to present the assets to the highest standard. All machinery was described, photographed and tested to maximise buyer confidence and financial return as a result. The auction consisted of 368 lots with a setup time of one and a half weeks with a one week break for the nationwide lockdown. 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 100,000 people and saw over 13,000 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 368 lots, final turnover was in ahead of our initial estimated sale return and the building was exited in a timely manner. Many of the larger machines were shipped throughout New Zealand including the 40 ton plate rollers traveling to Christchurch showing that comprehensive shipping options for buyers to conveniently get their machines maximises a vendors return by providing a much larger audience.