Farm auctions are not always the happiest events, particularly if financial hardship has forced the issue, but it’s even worse when they’re not successful.
Claudette Halverson said it’s too late to turn back the clock and redo her farm auction, but mistakes made at her sale may help others.
“I was frustrated after the fact,” said
Halverson, of Big Beaver, Sask.
“I could see all these things that could have been done to make it smoother.”
She said the biggest problem was that advertising seemed hit and miss. Farmers east of her received notice of the farm auction, while those to the west didn’t. The 600 pamphlets were sent with no thought about the proper distribution.
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“When you hire them, you trust them to tell you what to do,” said Halverson about the firm she hired to sell her farm machinery after her husband died.
Halverson originally planned to use a relative from Alberta to handle the sale, but by the time she realized a special
licence would be needed for that, many of the other auction companies were booked with spring sales.
Unsure who to hire, she flipped open the yellow pages and picked a company.
Halverson now recommends creating a checklist so people can ask the right questions when selecting an auction company: where will it advertise; what happens if there are mistakes in the pamphlets; when is the best time for a farm auction; how will the sale be managed and what happens when other farmers want to add items to the sale?
“It’s too late for me, but it might benefit someone else.”
Scott Campbell, a partner with Fraser Auctions in Brandon, which was not involved in Halvorson’s auction, said marketing is key to
success.
“The auction business is all about marketing,” said Campbell, who tailors advertising campaigns to the seller’s budget and the type of equipment for sale.
“If it’s not marketed, it doesn’t matter how well it’s set up. You’re not going to have a good sale.”
Jason LeBlanc, Saskatchewan regional manager for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, said advertising was definitely the reason for the success of that company’s first sale of the 2007 season.
The March 24 sale for Lloyd and Sandy Campbell near Pense, Sask., brought in at least $2 million, although he declined to give exact figures. Some of the equipment sold for more than it is worth new.
“The market worked out to about 20 percent higher than the same time last year,” LeBlanc said.
He offered several reasons for that, including strong advertising. The company received more phone calls from the United States than anywhere else, and buyers attended from Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.
Farmers buoyed by strong grain prices are much more optimistic than last year, he said.
“We’re seeing buyers come out of the woodwork that haven’t bought for the last five or six years,” LeBlanc said.
Now their equipment is getting older and it’s time to re-enter the market.
LeBlanc said it appears auctions this year will generally offer older equipment with more operating hours.
Fraser Auctions’ Campbell cautions against letting neighbours add equipment to the sale if it will compete with the farmer’s machinery.
“We see some guys who have two or three racks of small stuff and they have neighbours bring in three or four more. To me, all you’re going to do is destroy the sale by doing that,” said Campbell.
“We would highly advise against it.”
It’s also important to advertise when the large equipment sale will begin and when the smaller odds and ends will go on the block.
“People don’t want to stand there all day and watch you sell wrenches.”
LeBlanc added that Ritchie Bros. has had to combine some sales, turning a possible 151 events into 133, because there weren’t enough dates left on the calendar.
Most companies acknowledge that an early sale brings the seller the best prices.
