Similarly, it's not that clear how DoveBid is better than plain old eBay. DoveBid does a lot of liquidation sales of equipment that eventually ends up on eBay. It would be better for buyers if one or the other middlemen were cut out.
1. DoveBid, Equipnet, eBay all take a consumer-centric approach by just providing basic information and a countdown timer. Very few companies can purchase anything in that type of system. Our customers are not individuals but organizations that have more complex requirements, i.e. approval chains, inspections, contract negotiations, etc.
2. Auctions work well for sellers who have many items for sale and a limited time-frame, typically facility closures. The vast majority of idle equipment does not fall into that category.
All of the major auctioneers pre-announce the auctions and have inspection windows. They're used to working with companies that have those kinds of requirements.
> The vast majority of idle equipment does not fall into that category.
Yep -- solve this and that's amazing. I know several large biotech with huge amounts of idle old-ish hardware that we'd love to buy from them, but right now it's hard to crack that. Convince them to sell, lease, loan, whatever all that stuff and we'd be all over it.
For consumer sales, auctions still seem pretty popular, but in those cases the buyer has to be crazy not to use a sniping service. So even the true auctions on eBay are more like sealed-bid affairs.
eBay is a shiny end-user-friendly auction interface; industrial used equipment markets are way more complicated than that, and DoveBid/Equipnet offer a lot more depth when you get into them.