More buyers are discovering Ritchie Bros. isn’t just big equipment

Pull up to a Ritchie Bros. yard before an auction and you’ll see it immediately — row after row of heavy iron. Bulldozers, excavators, semi-trucks, and towering cranes. Many will assume it’s a place for big construction companies and industrial operations.  

But that assumption is wrong, and we’d like to share the story of four customers who found that out firsthand.

‘I thought you had to be a business’

Chris Janzen and his wife own an acreage near Williams Lake, BC. They’d been hunting for a rototiller for three or four years, constantly striking out on Facebook Marketplace — items were either overpriced, misrepresented, or in rough shape when they showed up to look.

“I drove past the Ritchie Bros. auction site all the time,” Chris said. “You see trailers, bulldozers, the equipment — and you just immediately assume, yeah, unless I’m sitting on half a million dollars, I don’t have the money to buy this sort of stuff.”

But once he got onto the Ritchie Bros. website, everything changed.

“When you get onto the website, that’s when you realize there’s a lot more to Ritchie Bros. It’s not just heavy equipment. There are all these little extra things. In the Chilliwack auction, they had chicken runs for sale.”

Chris eventually won a rototiller and a rock crusher — the same rock crusher that was listed on Facebook Marketplace for over twice as much.

“I’m not a big player,” he said. “But when it comes to the small equipment that’s going to make my life easier around my acreage — where we’re talking under $10,000 — I’m like, yeah, heck yeah, that’s what I’m interested in doing.”

A lake lot owner looking for a little dirt work

Derrick Wilson manages highway operations for a living, but this purchase was personal. He’d bought a lake lot near St. Paul, AB, and needed to do some dirt work over the summer.

“I need to do a bunch of dirt work up there,” he said, “so I decided to buy a little Bobcat. So I can play this summer.”

It was his first time buying from Ritchie Bros. He’d heard from others that it was easy. They were right.

“It was very, very easy to navigate,” he said. “I really liked the bid updates while the auction was going on — that was really helpful. Meant I didn’t have to sit there and stare at the screen all the time.”

After winning, he wired the payment that day. Within a week, he’d picked up the Bobcat and hauled it home.

“It was just so painless.”

He’s not just thinking about summer dirt work, either. Come winter, the Bobcat moves to his place in town to push snow.

When asked if he’d be back: “Yeah, I’ll be back.”

Texas entrepreneur who came for a forklift, stayed for everything else

Jeff Craig works in pipeline safety in East Texas, but his real passion right now is a side hustle he’s building around buying, modifying, and selling shipping containers — tiny homes, storage units, deer camps, and office spaces.

He’d driven past the Ritchie Bros. yard in Houston for years. “Man, those guys have got it going on. They’ve got everything.”

When he finally needed a forklift that could move containers, he came to the website — and discovered that Ritchie Bros. had the containers too.

He won a 40-foot one-tripper (brand new, one ocean voyage) for $4,600. He didn’t know he could go inspect it in-person before the auction — that was his one regret as a first-timer.

“I thought it was just, good luck, you can order it online,” he said. Once he found out he could have visited the yard in advance, his reaction was immediate: “I surely would have stopped and looked at it if I’d known.”

He’s planning to come back, and he has a long list: forklifts, more containers, possibly a dually pickup and trailers. “Y’all have everything if I can find it.”

A rancher who’s been coming back for 25 years

David Stafford is a self-employed rancher who also lives outside Williams Lake, BC. With 320 acres, a family farm he was born into, he’s been buying from Ritchie Bros. for more than 25 years.

What keeps him coming back? Value and selection.

“If you go to buy forks new at a dealership, you’re probably going to pay $1,500 for a set,” he said. “I picked them up for (less than half).”

His last order was two skid steer attachments — a set of pallet forks and a screening bucket for separating rocks from gravel. Nothing glamorous. Just the right tools for ranch work, found at a price that made sense.

David’s browsing approach is simple: he checks the upcoming listings, sees what looks useful, and bids based on his own research on fair value.

What they all found out about buying at Ritchie Bros.

None of these five buyers work in heavy construction. They’re a rancher, a lake lot owner, a real estate agent with an acreage, and a pipeline safety manager with a side hustle. What they all discovered is the same thing:

Ritchie Bros. isn’t just for big companies. It’s for anyone who needs equipment at a fair market value price.

Here’s what made it work for them:

You can inspect before you bid. At most Ritchie Bros. yards, you can visit pre-auction to look over any equipment you’re considering.  

Unmatched selection. Thousands of listings from sellers worldwide and it’s not just dozers and excavators.

Auctions are unreserved and trusted. There are no hidden reserve prices or secret bidders running up the price. The auctions are fair, safe, and transparent — and buyers like Chris and David consistently found prices well below what the same item was listed for on Facebook Marketplace.

You can pick it up yourself. Smaller items can often be loaded into a trailer or a pickup truck bed and hauled home the same day. No need to arrange freight for a rototiller or a set of forks.

The process is designed for newcomers too. Multiple bidders said the online experience was surprisingly easy to navigate, even without prior auction experience. You can set a PriorityBid, the system handles the rest, and email notifications keep you in the loop without needing to stare at a screen.

Ready to take a look?

If you own an acreage, a small farm, a lake lot, or just need a piece of equipment for a project around your property — browse the current listings at rbauction.com. You can search by equipment type, filter by location, and view inspection reports and photos for every item.

And if there’s a yard near you, there’s no harm in stopping in to see what’s available before the next auction. You might be surprised at what you find.

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See also

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