Top Tips For Selling Your Plant Equipment

    Posted On: 29 August 2019
    Construction equipment on a lot.

    Anyone selling a piece of plant equipment, whether it’s an excavator, dozer, wheel loader, or forklift, has the same goal: sell it fast for as much money as possible. But the way you go about making that sale will ultimately determine your level of success. That’s why we’ve provided the following tips, which offer a reliable roadmap for selling your equipment quickly and for a fair price.

    Take Quality Photos

    The first thing that grabs a buyer’s attention is the photo, so having quality photos of your equipment counts for a lot. Clean the asset and position it in a well-lit area with a neutral background so it’s the focal point. Include multiple photos in online listings, showing the asset from multiple angles inside and out, and include videos if possible.

    Price It To Sell

    Aside from pictures of your machinery, often the first thing a prospective buyer will look at is the price. If you don’t include a price when you list your equipment for sale, the listing will prompt buyers to call you for more information. However, statistics show that fewer people will respond to your ad because they will assume the price is too high.

    Including a price, however, is a delicate balancing act. If you price your plant equipment too high, it could take much longer to sell it. If you price it too low, you’ll risk leaving money on the table. There’s good news, though! Machinery Trader offers several ways for you to determine the value of your equipment and price it to sell.

    A Price Checker screenshot.
    You can find the Price Checker above any listing page on the website.

    The first option is to search for your machine’s exact make, model, and year to see what other sellers are asking. You can then click the Price Checker button for a concise summary of the numbers.

    Price Checker shows you the highest and lowest for-sale prices among listings for assets similar to yours, as well as averages, and lets you quickly jump to listing pages for the equipment for sale at retail and those up for auction.

    A Price Checker screenshot.
    Price Checker shows you the current high and low prices among equipment similar to yours and an average price. Click the number under “Auction Price Checker” to see final bids for recent auction lots.

    Clicking the number under “Auction Price Checker” brings you to the Auction Results page for the corresponding equipment category. The advanced search tool lets you narrow down results to machinery that not only match your asset’s make, model, and year, but also to find models with comparable hours, operating weight, and more. You can even specify listings for machines that have been sold within a certain number of days to ensure you’re getting the most current information available.

    Another excellent pricing tool is Value Insight Portal (VIP). VIP is a free tool that delivers highly accurate market and auction values for your equipment, trucks, and trailers for the current market and up to 12 months into the future.

    A sample display ad in Machinery Trader Resale Weekly magazine.
    A display ad, like this full-page example, lets you add a special CallStats phone number to track the number of calls it brings in, making it easy to gauge your advertising ROI.

    Reach Print & Online Audiences

    Online advertising is crucial in today’s world of mobile phones and other devices. That said, an extraordinary number of buyers still read the full-colour print edition of Machinery Trader Resale Weekly published every week. That’s why our sellers have the greatest success by listing their machines in print as well as on the website.

    A sample photo listing in Machinery Trader Resale Weekly magazine.
    Each equipment image in the print magazine, whether it’s in a larger ad or a photo listing like the one shown here, includes as Quick Find code. Readers can enter that code on the Machinery Trader website to quickly access the complete online listing.

    One advantage of a print ad is that its online counterpart moves up into the featured listings near the top of the website’s search results. Also, each asset gets a unique, six-character Quick Find code in its print ad’s upper-left corner. You can type this into the Quick Find field on the Machinery Trader site to immediately bring up the equipment’s online listing with the rest of the item’s photos, description, videos, and specifications.

    Write A Thorough & Accurate Description

    When writing the description for your listing, be sure to add as much detail as you can. Include all relevant specifications, non-standard features, and more. Be specific and accurate with the machine’s condition. If there are issues with the equipment, make the buyer aware and make sure the price reflects it.

    The last thing a buyer wants is to be surprised when they get their equipment. That may tempt you to write a line or two and then add “call for more details,” but that could potentially limit the number of prospective buyers. Be as transparent as possible and give buyers any information you would want to know when shopping for a machine.

    Monitor Your Progress

    After you post your listing, track how well it’s doing. Machinery Trader makes it easy to see how many overall impressions and detail page views your listing gets over a period of time, as well as how many people used a Quick Find code to find it, clicked the link to call you, or clicked to send you a message. If you aren’t getting as much traffic as you’d like or getting a good amount, and yet the machine isn’t selling, you may need to adjust the price, add more images, or tweak the description to engage more buyers.

    A WebStats dashboard screenshot.
    Machinery Trader advertisers can check their WebStats dashboard to see web traffic, incoming call totals, and incoming email totals for their ads.

    Advertise Today

    Browse current and past digital issues of Machinery Trader Resale Weekly magazine on our Newsstand to see more examples of full-page ads and photo listings. And contact us today if you’re interested in selling! A representative will be waiting to answer all of your questions and give you the tools you need to sell your equipment quickly.

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