Britannia AuctionsStock clearance auctions in Sheffield
Tool and hardware stock is what turns up most often in the Lower Don Valley. Toolmakers and engineering firms carry consumables in depth, and when a shop changes its work or closes a department, the stores are left full of inserts, drills, taps, abrasives and hand tools that were bought for jobs that have finished. Steel and metals firms hold bar, plate, tube and offcuts in grades the next order will never call for.
Both kinds of stock suit an auction. The machine shops in Attercliffe, Tinsley and Darnall use the same consumables every day and are close enough to view before bidding. Metal stock is lotted for fabricators and for the trade by weight.
We catalogue on site, sell online over a week to ten days and run collection in a fixed window. Use the form to describe what is in the stores.
Selling engineering consumables in useful quantities
A stores clearance is a large number of small items, and the lotting decides whether it makes money or makes work. We group consumables by type and size range so a buyer can bid for what their shop uses. A drawer of taps in one thread form is a lot. Twenty boxes of the same carbide insert is a lot. A shelf of mixed abrasives is a lot for a buyer who wants everything.
We photograph the labels rather than describe them, because the buyers in this trade know exactly what they are looking at. Unopened boxes are stated as such. Part used items are grouped and described honestly.
What a stores clearance makes depends on the brands, the condition, whether the sizes are still in common use and how the lots are built. We will say what interest we would expect before you commit.
Bar, plate and offcuts sold by weight or by lot
Steel and metals stock is sold in two ways. Full lengths and full sheets in a stated grade are lotted by material and size, and buyers bid per lot with the weight given in the catalogue. Offcuts, remnants and mixed grades are sold by the pallet or by the stillage, and buyers price them against scrap with a margin for what they can use.
Where grade certificates exist we attach them, because certified material sells to fabricators as well as to the scrap trade. Where they do not, we say so.
What the site can take is checked before collection is planned, from hard standing and turning space to the forklift or crane available on the day, and it goes in the catalogue so buyers know what to bring. Heavy plate needs lifting equipment, which is agreed for the site before collection starts. The trade in Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield and Worksop is a short drive away, and the M1 at junctions 33 and 34 puts the estates within reach of a lorry from further afield.
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 Sheffield
- The tooling consumables are branded. Does that stop the sale?
No. Consumables are sold on by distributors and users all the time, and the brand on a box of inserts is a description, not a restriction. The exception is stock supplied to you on consignment or held on a vendor managed inventory basis, which still belongs to the supplier and goes back to them. Check the paperwork on anything that arrived without an invoice, and we will keep it out of the catalogue until the position is clear.
- Is it worth selling offcuts, or should they go straight to the scrap merchant?
Send us a photograph and the approximate weight first. Mixed mild steel offcuts in small sizes will go for scrap value and the merchant is the simpler route. Stainless, tool steel, aluminium and any material with a known grade is worth lotting, because a fabricator can make parts from it and scrap weight does not reflect that. Selling the good material at auction and scrapping the rest is often the right answer, and we will say which is which.
More questions about stock clearance
Related services
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.