Following recession forecasts, company owners give the thumbs up to the used market
(1888PressRelease) December 17, 2008 - With the end of the year approaching, company owners are busy studying their balance sheet and analysing their business’ financial performance for 2008. Of course, the bigger economic picture must be taken into account: the recession has been one of the hottest topics on newspaper pages and political debates this whole year. Unfortunately, the UK situation seems worse than some analysts predicted. According to an estimate calculated by think tank NIESR (National Institute of Economic and Social Research), gross domestic product dropped by 1% in three months to November, following a 0.8% fall in three months to October.
Even if the Government puts in place its £20bn bail out to try and rescue the country from a sharp and prolonged recession, it seems likely that the situation will worsen during 2009. Kate Barker, one of the Bank of England’s most experienced interest ratesetters, believes that the situation will not stabilize until the end of next year, even though the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee has cut interest rates by a total of 3% in the space of two months.
On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics reported that industrial output dropped by 1.4% in October: one of the worst performances since the Second World War. The ONS registered a downward trend that has now been going on for eight successive months, with an annual rate of decline at 5.2%, which is expected to deteriorate further. If the current prediction turns out to be correct, in 2009 the rate of decline will reach its worst figure since 1945: more than 7%. As a consequence, analysts are revising the scale of the recession currently facing the country and the entire world. A suffering industry means pessimism, joblessness and home repossessions.
However, company owners are not a passive element in the equation. Instead of sitting and waiting for the Government to fix the recession, they are working hard to find a way to face – and eventually overcome – the current circumstances. One of the most significant trends that has emerged as a consequence of the credit crunch is the trade of industrial equipment on the used market. Buying used trucks, diesel engines and rollers allows businesses to perform a full asset upgrade whilst keeping costs down. At the other end of the deal, the sale of an underused loader, shredder or tractor can save companies a sizeable amount of money in storage and depreciating costs. With top manufacturers putting up the prices of new items, mainly due to the rising cost of steel, the practice of trading used machinery online is attracting more and more start-ups and SMEs. Spending limited budgets in a smart way is always a winning strategy for struggling companies.
The end-of-the-year calculations done by virtual marketplace AssetTrader, which connects traders from all over the world, are everything but gloomy: 318,000 buyers for Q3 2008, approximately 22,811 item views per day since October, with a database of over 60,000 (and growing) industrial machines and vehicles. Paul Holladay, CEO of AssetTrader, explains: “We are very satisfied with our current results. A few years ago, buying and selling industrial equipment online was more difficult and less safe: some internet procedures were time-consuming, plus you could encounter scammers and dodgy sellers. Ever since we started our business, we committed ourself to make the B2B online trade an easy, safe and user-friendly experience. At the moment, we have 45,000 potential buyers visiting our global network of websites every week. AssetTrader’s independent trading platform is helping buyers and sellers with their equipment wishlist and marketing needs. Consequently, our customers are already seeing better results at the end of this year. In 2009, we intend to improve on our services by refashioning our website and launching a few new multilingual domains. AssetTrader is happy to be hedging forward despite the difficult economic circumstances, and we are working hard to make sure that our registered users benefit from the same counterflow effect.”
About AssetTrader
With over 5000 registered users, AssetTrader is a leading online trading hub for used and new business equipment. It holds a regularly updated inventory of agricultural, manufacturing and construction machinery available for sale from major dealers and private sellers through to original equipment manufacturers. Headquartered in London, UK, AssetTrader brings together traders from the USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Following recession forecasts, company owners give the thumbs up to the used market 
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