I'm a huge user of stuff like this... There are definitely big opportunities in this market. It's not sexy, but it's really valuable.<p>One thing that's not clear is how Asseta is better than DoveBid or Equipnet. All the best deals are found at auction, and running those is going to be really hard for these guys to get into. There aren't any prices listed, either... just "contact seller" buttons. There are tons of markets that just list items with web-to-lead forms (biox, biosurplus, alliance analytical, etc).<p>Everyone who buying from these markets for long enough ends up writing bots to crawl pricing and availability data. That would be a useful service. Because it's all based on auctions for a very thin market, it can be hard to get a sense of availability or fair pricing for a particular type of equipment. Aggregating all that and making it actionable would be useful. I'm not sure I get just another site with listings and no prices though.<p>Logistics is another huge problem. There have been several times where we've bought something for a huge discount only to end up spending more than the cost of the hardware on rigging and shipping it. Some companies even pick up trucks at transportation auctions, hire a driver, and use it to pick up their equipment from all over before selling the truck at auction again.<p>We spend huge amounts of money on capital equipment, along with much of the rest of the world, and these kinds of services would be a big deal to us. I'm excited to see how their business evolves.
I'm a Clevelander, and I bought workbenches for my basement here:<p><a href="http://www.hgrinc.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hgrinc.com/</a><p>The warehouse is huge. It's (somewhat ironically) in an old auto plant in a Cleveland near-ring suburb. They (as of a few years ago) list items both on their own website and on eBay/others. I recall being told that their business model is to make an offer to a company closing a plant for all equipment -- simple liquidation.<p>When I was there, some guys from Florida were looking at some sort of precision measuring device. They owned a small machining operation and said that this particular device would cost $125K new. HGR was selling it for less than $5K.<p>I was quite pleased with my $30 workbenches. One had been modified with large, lockable casters. On the way out, another customer noted that the castors alone would cost $100 new for a set. One could question the time efficiency of my purchase, but I wasn't working at the time so my opportunity costs were low.
Interesting. My product is an office management tool for appraisers. It was originally intended for real estate appraisers (my background) but I had a significant and unexpected interest from non-real estate (personal property) appraisers, many of who are equipment valuers. Apparently this is a pretty big market. Good luck to them.