Ritchie Bros. starts to marry the Web, auctions

FORT WORTH, Tex. (March 22, 2000) — ItÕs not exactly eBay, but Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers is beginning to incorporate its Web site in its industrial auctions.

The company broadcast the first two days of a three-day auction held in Ft. Worth, Texas on March 14, 15, and 16 over the Internet. Over 1600 people tuned in to the auction live over the Internet, the company said. Nearly 2400 registered bidders came to the sale from 46 states, seven Canadian provinces, and 18 other countries.

Another auction takes place today and tomorrow in Olympia, Wash.

“Because our auctions are unreserved, bidders travel from around the world to participate,” says Dave Ritchie, Chairman and CEO of Ritchie Bros. “This allows us to transcend local market conditions and provide a global marketplace for industrial equipment. Live Internet broadcasts allow us to reach even more people.”

Record-breaking Web site traffic accompanied the broadcasts. Unique user sessions — full visits to the rbauction.com Web site — topped 9000 per day, up 50% from the previous peak levels recorded by the Company.

Customers were able to watch a live video feed of the auction and follow the selling prices. According to Ritchie, “We are broadcasting auctions for three reasons: (1) to introduce more people to our unreserved auctions, (2) to allow absentee bidders to monitor their bids, and (3) to prepare our customers for the live real-time bidding services we are currently developing.”

Over the two days of the broadcast, Web site users also completed over 16,000 equipment searches on the Ritchie Bros. site, including 4600 searches on the equipment being sold in the Fort Worth auction, a significant increase from search activity levels recorded in previous weeks.

Featured equipment in the auction included crawler tractors, wheel loaders, hydraulic excavators, over 300 truck tractors, dump trucks, lowboys, agricultural tractors, loader backhoes, forklifts, and cranes.