AucorActive is using its online bidding engine to do what would be impossible in the real world: sell the fittings of 80 stores at eight hours notice.
AucorActive, the online division of the Aucor auction house, opened bidding on the fixtures and fittings of 80 Scotts and Kids First stores across the country yesterday. The store chain is being liquidated at short notice, and the liquidators are unwilling to pay the rent on stores for another month.
To wind the business up, the contents of the stores have to be sold and removed within five days.
Such an auction would be impossible to put together without using the Internet, says AucorActive technical director Shannon Winterstein. "It is only our online section that allowed us to convene an auction of this magnitude literally in eight hours," he says.
"It is logistically impossible for the liquidators to do the removal themselves. If they wanted to send trucks to do it, they would have to send 80 trucks."
Aucor was approached to handle the disposal on Wednesday.
The stores` contents were listed online, regular buyers were informed of the sale by fax and e-mail, and near-instant banner adverts were placed on major sites. "Normally we would place national newspaper ads even for online auctions, but we missed the newspaper deadlines," Winterstein says.
Despite the unorthodox way the auction is being conducted, interest has been brisk, regardless of the fact that successful bidders will have to remove the fixtures and fittings from the stores by the end of Monday, 31 July.
Winterstein says bidding for eight of the stores has already exceeded the reserve price of R2 000, only 14 hours after bidding opened. Each store is being handled as a separate auction, to ensure that local bidders can remove the goods before the deadline.
The price at installation of the goods for sale is estimated at between R170 000 and R320 000 for the bigger stores. That includes till point computer systems, displays and counters.
Bidding will close on Friday afternoon, but AucorActive is already pleased with the success in simply being able to handle the auction at short notice. "We are happy that it is very successful at this point," says Winterstein.
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