ST. EDWARD – BigIron Auctions takes bids for farm equipment on its website.
They said the auction business has been moving more toward the internet arena, but that it has intensified recently because of the coronavirus.
“A lot more people have come to our website than ever before, our registrations were through roof in the month of March and April,” Co-CEO Mark Stock said. “The amount of equipment that is being sold has increased dramatically because people didn’t have any other option and they still needed a cash flow of their operations.”
BigIron is no stranger to online auctions. After all, Stock said they’ve been doing it for almost 20 years.
While BigIron is not the only company to offer bidding over the web, Stock said there are some who have stuck with the traditional in-person events.
“Because of COVID, they were shut down and they didn’t have the opportunity to connect those sales,” he said. “Many of them converted to an online format in one way, shape or form. We’ve just been doing it a long time and I think that wave is going to continue for more and more people to get into that space.”
Because of the option to participate in online auctions, he said many in the agricultural community were able to continue doing business despite the restrictions on crowds and social distancing.
“When they needed machinery, they came to the online spaces,” Stock said. “When they wanted to sell some equipment, they came to the online space. That’s what they had to do to keep their operation in the flowing position that it needs to go into.”
Without it, he said the economic impact would have been significant.
“There’s so many billions of dollars of ag equipment that are sold across the world globally every year,” he said. “If you took the billions of dollars being sold and shut that down for three or four or five months, that would have a tremendous impact on a lot of things.”
