United Auc­tion­eers sets second online auction in ‘new nor­mal’

By Daxim Lucas/Biz Buzz

How does a com­pany pro­ceed for­ward when its busi­ness model is cen­tered around hav­ing as many clients crowd into a venue to bid on the prod­ucts it of­fers for sale?
In the case of Su­bic-based United Auc­tion­eers Inc., the so­lu­tion is to move its bi­monthly auc­tions on­line. After the first such ac­tiv­ity last June, the com­pany now run by busi­ness­man Rom­mel Sytin (who took over from his late brother, Do­minic) is set to have its sec­ond on­line auc­tion next week.
In­stead of hav­ing bid­ders flock to Su­bic for four-day auc­tions, po­ten­tial buy­ers of thou­sands of re­man­u­fac­tured trucks and con­struc­tion equip­ment from Ja­pan can do it from the com­fort of their homes. And they can do it on any de­vice, too, whether they be desk­top com­put­ers, tablets or mobile phones that can run video­con­fer­enc­ing apps.
Clients who are not yet tech savvy can also join the bid­ding by phone, just like in any auc­tion house over­seas that uses proxy bid­ders.
All an in­ter­ested bid­der has to do is to regis­ter on­line, put up the re­fund­able P250,000 de­posit, in­spect the items for sale on­line (or in per­son in Su­bic, as long as they make an ap­point­ment first), and bid on the items dur­ing next week’s auc­tion.
Just like United Auc­tion­eers’ reg­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties in the “old nor­mal” days, the heavy equip­ment will be pa­raded in front of the cam­eras for the bid­ders to see them, while ex­pert auc­tion masters whip the crowd into a frenzy with their high tempo price bark­ing.
Bid­ders sim­ply have to raise their num­bers in front of their de­vice cam­eras to be ac­knowl­edged by the bid catch­ers.
Of course, dur­ing the old nor­mal, United Auc­tion­eers used to dis­pose of around 2,500 units of heavy equip­ment over four days. Nowa­days, the fig­ure is slightly lower than that, but it’s safe to say that busi­ness is still brisk by “new nor­mal” stan­dards.
After 20 years in busi­ness, over 150,000 units sold, over 60,000 reg­is­tered buy­ers across the coun­try and at least 129 suc­cess­ful auc­tions con­ducted, it seems this com­pany won’t let the pan­demic stop it.

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SHOWN in file photo are Rommel Sytin (left) and brother Kenneth