Britannia AuctionsCollective auctions and single item consignments in Reading
Two kinds of small consignment come out of Reading. The first is from the office parks. A technology firm at Green Park or Thames Valley Park moves floors or shuts a satellite office and has forty desks, a hundred monitors, a comms rack and a kitchen's worth of appliances to move by the lease end. The second is from the trading estates beneath them. A vehicle repairer on Portman Road replaces a lift. An engineering shop at Battle Farm sells a lathe. A plant hire yard at Theale has an attachment nobody rents.
A collective auction takes both. Your lots go into a shared online sale with items from many vendors, identified by lot number only. Bidding is open across the UK, and trade and office buyers in Wokingham, Bracknell, Basingstoke and Newbury are close enough to attend a viewing day.
Tell us what you have and the date it must be gone.
Office clearances from the business parks
Office furniture and IT equipment are lots we see more of here than in most towns. Desks, task chairs, meeting tables, storage, monitors, laptops, docking stations, servers and network switches can all be catalogued, provided they go in as sensible lots and the IT has been wiped. Ten matching chairs are a lot. One chair is not.
Data matters. Laptops, desktops, servers and phones must be wiped or the drives removed before they come to us, and we will ask you to confirm it. Licences and leased equipment stay with the lessor.
The office park lease is the clock. Dilapidations usually require the floor to be empty on the date, so we work back from it and propose a sale that closes with room for collection before you leave. Small businesses and dealers across the Thames Valley are close enough to view office kit in person, and the IT is open to bidders anywhere.
Workshop machines and vehicles from the trading estates
The estates on Loverock Road, Portman Road and Cardiff Road hold the workshops that keep the town moving, and they replace equipment one machine at a time. Vehicle lifts, tyre machines, compressors, lathes, welding sets, hand tools and the odd van are the usual single lots. Plant hire yards at Theale and across the area add small plant and attachments.
These units are older and some yards are tight, so we ask for photographs and check the approach, the turning space, the door dimensions and the floor before deciding what to send. The lot can be collected and sold from our premises where that is agreed, with a set viewing day, or a lift or heavy machine that is still bolted down can be catalogued in place and collected once by the buyer after the sale.
Three motorway junctions serve the town, so a buyer with a trailer is on the M4 within minutes of collecting. A van on finance needs the funder's agreement before it is listed.
What these sales can include
- Single machine tools
- Individual vans and pickups
- Compressors and generators
- Welding equipment
- Woodworking machines
- Hand tools and power tools
- Office furniture and IT equipment
- Catering equipment from a single kitchen
- Small plant and attachments
- Garden and grounds machinery
- Trailers
- Workshop consumables and stock
How a collective sale works
A collective auction is a regular online timed sale made up of lots from many vendors. Each vendor's lots are identified in the catalogue by lot number only. Buyers see one catalogue and bid across it, so a small consignment sits in the same sale as the larger ones.
Your lots are photographed and listed alongside the others. Bidding runs online, with lots closing in sequence on the sale date. Each lot is offered as seen under the auction terms, with buyers expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately.
After the sale, buyers pay and collect within the collection window. We account to you from cleared funds once it has closed and the sale is reconciled, less the agreed commission and any agreed costs.
The collective auctions and single item consignments page covers minimum viable value, at our premises or at yours, what to bring and what to tell us, timescales and unsold lots.
Questions about selling in Reading
- We are leaving an office at Green Park with forty desks and monitors. Is that a collective sale or a clearance?
Forty desks is a small consignment, and a collective sale is the right home for it. We lot the furniture in matching runs, the monitors in batches, and any single higher value item, such as a comms rack or a boardroom table, on its own. Collection in one visit with a lorry and a crew can be arranged, or you deliver. Confirm the IT is wiped, tell us the date the floor must be empty, and we work back from it.
- Do you take one digger attachment from a plant yard at Theale?
Yes, if it clears the value floor, and we will tell you whether it does. Buckets, breakers, grabs and quick hitches are used by hire firms and contractors, and bidding is online, so the audience is not limited to buyers who can attend. Tell us the machine it fits, the pin size, the weight and the condition, with photographs. It comes to us on a pallet or a trailer and sells in the next collective sale.
More questions about single items and small lots
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- What happens to unsold lots
Not every lot sells, but the site still has to be cleared. This guide covers why lots go unsold, private treaty after the sale, lowering or removing the reserve, a later sale, scrap and WEEE recycling, and what disposal costs.