News

Love bargain hunting? Fill the need while helping schools, cities and firefighters

Love a bargain?

Sure, everybody does. Love helping out your kid’s school? Heck yes.

Well now there’s a way to get some great bargains on all kinds of stuff, and also possibly put a few bucks in your local school’s, city’s or fire department’s pocket book at the same time.

GovDeals.com provides services to various government agencies that allow them to sell surplus and confiscated items via the internet. There are tons of items to bid on.

You’ll find automobiles, clothing, computers, medical equipment, office equipment, real and estate and so much more. To start bidding, simply join the Liquidity Services Network by registering for a free account.

Once you’ve registered, you will have access to all the marketplaces found on the site. You can set up “Favorites” and receive notifications when items are newly posted or closing soon. Get notified of items by location, category or seller.

A search of 50 miles around Rockingham brought up a plethora of agencies, including the Richmond County Schools, the city of Southern Pines, the Eagle Springs Volunteer Fire Deparment and Moore County all having items listed for sale by auction on the site.

Other nearby groups who take advantage of the website’s services include Cumberland County Schools, the city of Fayetteville, the city of Denton, the East Howellsville Volunteer Fire Department and Fayetteville Public Works.

But sometimes folks use the site to get something back that was taken from them.

And as many people have found out the hard way, there are many items that you can and cannot bring through airport security. So what if you want your item back? It may surprise you to learn that most of the TSA-confiscated items wind up on the auction block for sale to the highest bidder.

In 2016 alone, TSA confiscated a record number of 3,391 improperly checked firearms at airport security checkpoints. This figure does not include all the machetes, grenades, Batman throwing stars, Klongon-esque knives and hatchets people attempted to bring onboard. And most of it ended up on GovDeals.com, with prices similar to Ebay or less.

The company knows what it’s doing. GovDeals was launched in 1999 as an online auction platform to be used specifically by local and state government organizations to sell their surplus and confiscated items in a safe, transparent and sustainable way. Since then, clients have sold more than 1.2 million items ranging from parking meters to aircraft, returning more than $1.4 billion back in revenue, according to Jeanette Hanfling, the company’s Director of Public Relations.

GovDeals, Inc. is a subsidiary of Liquidity Services, a global solution provider in the reverse supply chain with the world’s largest marketplace for business surplus, Hanfling said. The company’s network of e-commerce marketplaces enable buyers and sellers to transact in an efficient, automated environment offering over 500 product categories. The company boasts having over 10,000 clients worldwide and nearly $7 billion in completed transactions, and approximately 3 million buyers in almost 200 countries and territories.

GovDeals.com sells surplus items your local city,school or fire department no longer wants

Robert Leininger
Editor

Read Richmond County Daily Journal