Went to two facilities yesterday, same company. Silent bidding (more on this later)

First location advertised 6 units....was down to one at auction time. 20 or so in the crowd... half noobs, half regulars. Cut the lock, threw open the door and there stood one broken beach chair and an old pillow. Pass.

Second location advertised 18 units....still had 14 at auction time. Same kind of crowd, lost a few, picked up a few.

I ended up bidding on 6 of the 14, smaller, inside units, obvious quality or neatly packed mysteries....I have a bit of the gambler in me and neatly stacked & packed closed boxes and totes sometimes get me going. Bid prices ranged from mid $200 range to upper $400 range.

.....now about the silent bidding aspect. Everyone gets a bid sheet with all the units listed and has until the end of the auction to fill them out and hand them in.

THEN....they are sent off to the corporate headquarters in Texas to be tallied up and winners decided. This takes anywhere from 10 to 15 BUSINESS days. This is the only company I have ever dealt with that does their auctions this way.

Has anyone else ever run into this kind of policy? It has many downsides to it but the one upside is, so many folks around here hate it, that the crowds stay relatively small.

It took me a while to get used to not needing to have any cash on me and lugging a fist full of locks around.....and the wait can be torture, especially if you have upcoming actions prior to hearing back from Texas. All in all though I have had some profitable units from this chain and have continued to return.

Thoughts?

Sounds strange, but if all the hassle keeps the competition at bay and you can win some nice units, i'm all for it!

Hey? Did it really work?  Anybody else see a rough-assed Yamaha Big Wheel and a really messy backyard?

Yea, we can tell you're not worried about a storm or shower popping up! I guess rain outs are few and far between. You guys must hope for sandstorms to keep the newbies home. 

I see a YouTube channel in the future with Movieman as the auction buyer and Roger Mack as the auctioneer color commenting on storage auctions. We could all start video recording our local auctions and send them to the guys and they could review them and take the best ones and do a 1/2 hour show doing a "play by play" of the auctions. It would be great watching them verbally joust as each one defends their side of the industry and both forcefully redicule "newbies" who make really dumb mistakes.

I see $$$, think about it...   

Went to a HUGE auction in a smaller city of 15,000 about 75 miles from where I live. They advertised 40+ units, and I think they auctioned 48 if I remember correctly. It was advertised on AuctionZip so you know what that means! HUGE crowd, largest I have seen, well over 200 people, some folks were estimating 300 people. I did not even attempt to do a count myself. Crowd was so large they had to open 3 to 4 to 5 units up at a time and had the line snaking up and down various rows of units for folks to look. What was really bad is you had to bid on units while you where in line waiting to look at other units.

I managed to win 2 units. a 10 x 15 3/4 full and a 7 x 12 1/2 full for a little over $1200. (when I say 1/2 full & 3/4 full, I am talking total volume, not floor space) Prices were on the high end of making a profit, but still a little bit cheaper then what they have been going for in my city the last four to five months. I didn't see any "jackpot" units and no single unit broke the $1000 mark.

It will take a while to sort and research, so the treasure chest update will be a while. I did find a practically brand new leather Harley Davidson jacket that retails for $400, and I got 11, yes eleven, vacuum cleaners out of ONE unit. I hope it's not 1 working and 10 broken. 

What was intersesting was I didn't see a single regular buyer from my city at this auction. I thought that was strange because our city is the closest metro area to this smaller city, I didn't think it was that far a drive.

For this business model to work, online storage auctions, it will be dependent on the perceived value of the service. I can see it working as long as people don't believe they are being set up and over paying for the units. As long as a good percentage of people are happy with the units they win, and the facilities are getting the money they need, then it certainly looks like it has a future. Probably would be quite a while before they totally replace "live" auctions, but I could definitely see as a auction buyer in the next 5 to 10 years the possibility of 50% of units coming from internet auctions and the other 50% from traditional live auctions.

I've yet to see the Goodwill in our area have an auction.  I'll have to call and ask I guess.  Actually starting to run low on some inventory.  Of course my luck I'd buy back stuff I've donated to Goodwill

Really, I always chuckle when I see stuff on the shelves I donated.

I've had problems with Ebay before, when I attempted to sell Microsoft software in sealed boxes, they removed my listings. I send them a photo of the software box with a current issue of my local newspaper and I didn't have any issues after that.  They also removed a police badge I was trying to sell as well. I have a whole bag of old police badges and no where I can sell them. I believe the policy is the badges must be at least 100 years old and obsolete, the ones I have are only 70 years old and obsolete.

Next time there is a gun show in your area take the police badges there and you will sell them. Or there is also the dreaded sit out in the sun all day local flea market. 

It's legal in my state, in other states it could be illegal.