Britannia AuctionsStock clearance auctions in Bristol
Two kinds of stock come up for clearance around Bristol, and they could not be more different. On the north fringe, the aerospace supply chain holds fasteners, raw material, composites and consumables bought to a customer's specification and left when a programme slows. It is small, dense, traceable and expensive. At Avonmouth and Severnside, the distribution sheds hold pallet stock in volume, from food and drink to homeware, and the problem there is the size of the shed and the cost of keeping it full.
We sell both by online auction. The aerospace stock is lotted with its paperwork for buyers who can use certified material. The warehouse stock is lotted by the pallet for wholesalers and resellers who buy on price.
Tell us which kind you have, and roughly how much of it, through the contact form.
Aerospace fasteners and shelf life stock
Aerospace surplus turns on the paperwork. Material with its certificate of conformity and traceability intact can go to buyers who need certified stock, and material without it cannot, which is the main thing separating one price from the other. So we start with the paperwork, matching batch numbers to boxes before anything is photographed, and we keep the two piles apart in the catalogue.
Fasteners, bushes, inserts and bearings in sealed packaging sell to approved distributors and to the general precision trade. Bar, sheet, plate and tube in aerospace grades are catalogued for machine shops that can put certified titanium or aluminium into work. Composite prepreg and adhesives have a shelf life and often a freezer life, and interest in them depends on whether they are in date and the storage record exists.
Anything marked with a customer's part number needs the customer's agreement before it goes in the sale. We ask for that at the first visit rather than after cataloguing.
Avonmouth sheds and inner city units need different plans
A clearance from a shed at Cabot Park or Central Park is a volume job. Racking runs high and the stock is on standard pallets, so we list by pallet, run viewing over one day and give collection slots to keep the dock clear. How long the window runs turns on the number of lots and the vehicles buyers bring.
A unit in St Philips Marsh or Brislington is checked differently. The first visit looks at street access and turning space, parking, door dimensions and whether there is anything on site to load with, and the lotting follows what we find, with smaller lots, vans and pallet trucks and collection spread over more days.
Bath, Yate, Weston-super-Mare and Keynsham are a short drive from the port estates, and the M4 and M5 put the Midlands and South Wales on a straight run. Bidding is online, and buyers further away collect by haulier, which can be arranged where it is agreed.
What these sales can include
- Discontinued product lines
- Overordered components and parts
- Customer returns and graded stock
- Seasonal goods
- Ex display and showroom items
- Packaging and consumables
- Raw materials and fabrics
- Bulk trade stock on pallets
- Tools and hardware
- Homeware and furniture stock
- Clothing and footwear
- Building products and fixings
Running the sale
A stock clearance runs as an online timed auction, open for a week to ten days in most cases. There is a viewing day at your premises, or at the location where the stock has been gathered. Bidders inspect the lots, then bid online until each lot closes.
After the sale, buyers collect within a window agreed with you, usually a few days. Collection is the point where a stock sale needs organising. Buyers arrive with vans and lorries, lots have to be handed to the right person and the paperwork has to match. Our staff manage the door and sign each lot out.
If you cannot host viewing and collection, the stock can be moved to our premises or a third party warehouse where that is agreed. That adds transport cost but keeps the process away from your trading site.
The stock clearance auctions page covers when an auction is the right route, lotting the stock, offered as seen and the buyer's position, alternatives to auction.
Questions about selling in Bristol
- Our aerospace stock has traceability paperwork. Does it have to go with the lots?
It should, because the paperwork is most of the value. A buyer in the aerospace supply chain cannot use material without its certificate and release documents. We scan the certificates, attach them to the catalogue entry and hand the originals over with the goods at collection. Material where the paperwork has gone missing is still sold, but described as uncertified and lotted for the general engineering trade at a lower price.
- Our stock at Avonmouth is on racking twelve metres high. Do buyers pick it or do we?
Your staff or a contractor you appoint bring them down before the collection window opens. Buyers are not sent up racking in a working warehouse. The usual plan is to bring the sold pallets down to a marshalling area on the collection days, laid out by lot number, so that each buyer's vehicle can load without waiting. If your reach trucks have gone with the lease, tell us early and a machine and an operator can be arranged for the collection days.
More questions about stock clearance
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Guides
- What insolvency practitioners need from an auctioneer
For office holders realising physical assets. Covers the instruction letter, the asset schedule and valuation basis, retention of title, finance checks, site security, health and safety during the sale, and the reconciliation you need for the file.
- 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.