Many suburbs switching to eBay from city auctions
Looking for an asphalt paver with low mileage? How about a gently used autopsy table?
Elwood Blues had to attend the Mount Prospect police auction to pick up a new Bluesmobile. But these days local governments are forgoing open-air auctions, instead moving surplus inventory with the click of a mouse.
Many suburban entities - from village governments to park districts - are using online auction sites to sell items such as old squad cars, unclaimed property, office furniture and heavy equipment.
Municipalities also sell atypical items, such as a Harley-Davidson that Villa Park police are preparing to auction. Or church-style pews from the Hoffman Estates village hall. Then there's the autopsy work station, a stainless steel table used by the coroner, that Lake County recently sold to a local funeral home for $510.
Even the state treasurer has an eBay store, offering unclaimed property at bargain prices.
Most local governments say they are not using sites to make money but are instead looking to save money and unload goods quickly.
Selling wares on sites such as eBay, govdeals.com, obenaufauctionsonline.com and the State of Illinois' I-Bid, users say, is more efficient and convenient.
That's because a live auction requires the transportation of inventory to a central location and often the services of an auctioneer, all of which cuts into the seller's take.
"Using online sites like eBay is much more efficient and the returns are just as good or better than live auctions," Hoffman Estates Village Manager Jim Norris said. "You are not paying the 20 percent auction commission, you don't use staff time to assemble the items - you just reference that you have them. And there is a much broader audience."
For example, the West Dundee Police Department sold squad cars to New Orleans police departments after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.
The village also has sold public works dump trucks, an asphalt paver and employee vehicles, netting the village more than $30,000 in the last three years, West Dundee Finance Director David Danielson said.
Unclaimed property - such as items stolen from stores at Spring Hill Mall - also make their way to the auction block.
In addition, local police departments auction off vehicles confiscated after a drunken driving or drug-related offense under the state's vehicle seizure and forfeiture laws.
The list of seized vehicles in Villa Park includes a 2004 Cadillac Escalade and a 2006 Harley Davidson. Norm Russell, the village's fleet superintendent, said the motorcycle's owner crashed and then fled the scene and tried to report the bike as stolen.
Bidding on the Harley will begin at $3,500.
Using the Internet, where everyone is a potential customer, has resulted in larger returns compared to other selling formats for the Lisle Park District. The district previously accepted closed bids on surplus equipment but found interested buyers often submitted lowball offers, said Aaron Cerutti, the park district's superintendent of parks and facilities. The park district has used Obenauf Auctions since last fall.
"These auctions typically have brought us anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent higher prices than we were able to get by either trading in vehicles or selling them ourselves," Cerutti said. "They are not extra revenue generators. We just use it as a way to maximize the revenue we are taking in on used equipment and vehicles."
Last year, online sales generated almost $12,000 for the park district, Cerutti said.
Online auctions also solved the storage issues Lake County encountered whenever it replaced workplace computers, said Larry Wollheim, the county's principal purchasing officer. The county replaces computers every three years and would store the equipment until the next scheduled live auction, Wollheim said.
"Doing it this way, we can sell and offer the computers to the public at anytime," Wollheim said. "We don't have a warehouse so the computers were a glut on space. If we can get rid of it, we can operate a little smoother."