Buying the things you need, can always be less expensive if you know where to look. It becomes a discount versus convenience and trust situation. For example lets say you're looking around to buy that new 75" wide screen plasma TV (or .75 carat diamond earrings for the ladies). Traditionally the only avenue considered would be to shop at the local retail store because of the familiarity and trust you have with that process. Evolutionists will browse the Internet to find that eBay had a similar local near new TV that was selling for 25% less then the one at the store. So do you take the chance to save $1000 and succumb to the inconvenience and possible risk of buying from someone you don't know or do you take the safe route while spending more then you'd like? I go through this dilemma each time I'm buying a 'bigger then a breadbox' kind of item.
Now I have another source in which I check as well. It's a different type of auction known as a Government Auction. The term 'government auctions is often loosely used as it covers a wide spectrum of auctions and liquidations including bank and bankruptcy liquidations, tax sales, government surplus auctions and police auctions. Government surplus represents items the local, state or federal government no longer requires. Police auctions can be seized items or items laundered or stolen that were not recovered by the original owner.
So now there may be a similar 62" screen but this time it's listed with a government auction for 75% off. All of a sudden the discount versus convenience and trust resulting equation starts to become more obvious. If I can pick up this TV locally and I am assured that it is in full working order and can be returned if not, then my inconvenience and risk is minimized will my savings is maximized. So the TV that started at $4000, I am now purchasing for $1000. Now obviously there may not be an item per item locally available at a government auction, but you'll be surprised of the large selection resulting from the large number of agencies etc. that filter there collected inventory into your the local government auctions.
So why would these prices be that much lower then retail or even eBay? Well with both the retail store and eBay the seller is looking to make as much profit as possible, but with a government auction the focus is not on profit but rather to clear out inventory as quickly as possible, with little concern of what the selling price or profit is. This combined with the general public's perception that government auctions mean house foreclosures and maybe the occasional car auction has left this area an untouched treasure for those that capitalize on the opportunity.
The problem in the past was that the hundreds of different government auctions and items within each auction were always accessed individually so searching for a certain item often resulted in limited and unsatisfactory searches. Just recently my number one rated government auction site (see last paragraph) has obtained passage to a collaborated database, which has access to a large number of government auction listings. The result is a central listing with millions of listings for every product imaginable, from houses, vehicles of all shapes and sizes, jewellery, electronics, equipment, home and office furniture, and anything else you can imagine including lower ticket priced items. So how it works is once you have a membership to my number one rated government auction site (see below) you can simply go to the site and search what item you are looking for. The collaborative search I mentioned will search through every government auction for both online (eBay style of bidding) and live auctions. The online listing will give detail on the item and allow a link to the specific auction if you care to bid. The live auction items will provide information about the item and further details of where the live auction will be held. Although most people prefer the convenience of shopping online the live auctions are worthwhile especially for the larger items such as a cars, as thing will allow you a chance to carefully inspect any item before bidding.
So as you can see, government auctions are a good way to acquire more of the things that you want. It promises to be a fun buying experience that will extend your purchasing power. Ultimately, it serves as a good tool for the government to recoup some costs to help lessen the public's tax pressures. Obviously it does help the environmental as it falls under the 'reuse' camp. So try government auction's new online item search and just maybe you can afford both 75" TV and .75 carat earrings.
