Britannia AuctionsSurplus equipment sales in Southampton
Freight moves through this city on a scale that produces surplus by the shed load. When a forwarding contract changes hands at Nursling or Adanac Park, the outgoing operator is left with racking, counterbalance trucks, dock levellers and packing benches that the incoming one has no use for. Vehicle handling at the docks turns over its own equipment. So do the marine engineers on the Itchen and the aerospace suppliers along the Eastleigh corridor, though their surplus is machine tools and test kit rather than pallet trucks.
We sell all of it the same way. Items are catalogued where they stand and listed in an online timed auction that runs a week or two. Collection is in booked slots after the buyer has paid. Your yard keeps working while it happens. Send us a list and we will tell you what is worth putting in.
Warehouse kit from the sheds off the M271
Distribution surplus is bulky and plentiful, and the operators along the same estates run on the same equipment. Pallet racking sells by the bay. Forklifts and reach trucks sell by the unit, with hours and service history in the description. Dock levellers, shrink wrappers, pallet inverters and conveyor sections all have a market, and so do the site cabins and containers left in a corner of the yard.
The big sheds at Nursling and Adanac Park were built for articulated lorries, though the yard, the door and the turning space are checked before anything is listed. The trade in Totton, Eastleigh, Romsey and Winchester is well placed for the viewing day. Dealers from further away send a haulier. We give each one a slot and keep them clear of your inbound traffic.
Millbrook, beside the container terminal, is busier on the road and we plan collection there around the port's peak hours.
Marine and aerospace shops along the Itchen and at Hedge End
Boatbuilders and marine engineers accumulate a different kind of surplus. Engine test beds, hydraulic presses, welders for aluminium and stainless, spray booths and the tooling from a boat model that is no longer built. The aerospace and engineering suppliers on Solent Industrial Estate and around Eastleigh add machine tools, inspection kit, calibrated test equipment and benches.
Much of this is catalogued for the trade nearby, and some for buyers who bid online from anywhere in the UK without visiting. A waterside workshop needs a site check before we list heavy lots, because a low loader that can reach a shed at Hedge End may not reach a slipway on Southampton Water. Where a lot has to leave by crane or by barge we say so in the catalogue, and the bidding adjusts accordingly.
We can also collect smaller lots and sell them from our own premises when a workshop has no room for viewing.
What these sales can include
- Machine tools and CNC equipment
- Forklifts and access platforms
- Pallet racking and shelving
- Compressors and air tools
- Welders and fabrication kit
- Vehicles and trailers
- Test and measurement equipment
- Site accommodation and containers
- Packaging and labelling machines
- Obsolete stock and components
- Office furniture and IT
- Catering and canteen equipment
Selling from a live site
Most surplus sales happen inside a business that is still trading. That changes how we work. Cataloguing is done around your shifts. Viewing is by appointment or on a single day, with visitors signed in and escorted. Collection is booked in slots so that nobody is moving a machine through the middle of a production run.
Items that are still bolted down, plumbed in or connected to services are isolated by a competent person before collection, with electrical and gas disconnection done by qualified people. Buyers arrange and pay for the removal of their lots, and they do not disconnect services themselves.
Tell us about anything that affects access: weight limits on floors, door heights, crane availability, restricted hours. It all goes in the catalogue so buyers plan the removal properly.
The surplus equipment sales page covers what counts as surplus, one sale or a standing arrangement, pricing, reserves and the buyer's premium, after the sale.
Questions about selling in Southampton
- Our forklifts are in a port area that needs security passes. How do viewing and collection work?
Viewing moves to a single appointment day and we escort visitors under your pass arrangements, or we photograph and film the trucks in enough detail that a buyer can bid without a visit. For collection we book each buyer's haulier into a slot, give you their details in advance and have a member of our staff at the gate to let lots go only when they have been paid for. If passes are a real obstacle we move the trucks to our own premises before the sale.
- The cruise season keeps our yard busy from spring. When should we sell?
Sell in the quieter months if you can choose. A catalogue day and a collection week are easier to fit in when the yard is not at full stretch, and the freight trade works to the same seasons, so the quieter months suit both sides. If the surplus is in the way now, though, we work around the traffic. Cataloguing takes a few hours, viewing is one day by appointment, and collection slots can be set outside your busiest shifts.
More questions about surplus equipment
Related services
Guides
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.
- How used machinery is valued
Buyers pay for what a machine will do for them, less what it costs to get it out and running. This guide explains how make, hours, tooling, demand and removal cost feed a guide price, and why that price is not book value.