White goods at Auction Houses

JC_Derby

Hmmm...Moving house (fingers crossed) shortly and will need all major appliances as ours are integrated and the new place isn't. I suspect this will cost well over 1k and whilst I can do it by using c.c's im pondering returning to the well known local auction house (john Pyes) (3 branches locally).
Yes I understand its buyer beware, Ive bought from them before and attended lots of auctions a while ago there, but white goods any one got any history stories etc
I am by trade an electrical engineer which may help a little bit


any stories anyone?

RFW

JC_Derby wrote: »

Hmmm...Moving house (fingers crossed) shortly and will need all major appliances as ours are integrated and the new place isn't. I suspect this will cost well over 1k and whilst I can do it by using c.c's im pondering returning to the well known local auction house (john Pyes) (3 branches locally).
Yes I understand its buyer beware, Ive bought from them before and attended lots of auctions a while ago there, but white goods any one got any history stories etc
I am by trade an electrical engineer which may help a little bit


any stories anyone?

See if you can find out where they come from. I'm not 100% on how Pye's get stock so I'll make a general statement on how some auction houses get such stock. They often buy returns from Costco, John Lewis and other big chains. They buy at a percentage of retail and sell, in theory, to the highest bidder, they don't always sell all the stock they have, even though it may look like.

The returns could be for cosmetic damage or could be a mechanical fault. Often the most reliable working items are ones that don't look so good, a broken handle, a scratch/mark, etc. You may sometimes find a label that says why an item was returned. Some mechanical faults can often be something easy to fix (as you know) others may not. So, in a fridge, it could be anything from a broken light to it not getting cold. I had an auction house a few years back and we used to get white goods from a reseller, so often they could be returns of returns.

It's relatively easy to do your homework at an auction as you can check the price easy enough on your phone before bidding. You might be better placed than me as an engineer, but as someone who has been an auctioneer and sold white goods I wouldn't bother. I'd rather have something delivered with a guarantee.

mrcol1000

Agree with the above. While you can get lucky at an auction. Despite what some auctions try to say, commercial auctions are not for the consumer.

You have an advantage being an engineer but you still have to consider why these have gone to auction and not an outlet shop.

If you do go ahead then make sure you inspect before auction, work out your bid (factoring in buyer charges on top of your bid) and if you win, make sure you got the item you bid on.

RFW

mrcol1000 wrote: »

If you do go ahead then make sure you inspect before auction, work out your bid (factoring in buyer charges on top of your bid) and if you win, make sure you got the item you bid on.

That reminded me of another good point worth making. Make sure that the one on view is the one you are buying. They may well have 50 of the same make and model in storage and rather than sell the display one will give you one from the back, this could be better or worse than the one on view.