Eilat Lev's International Tractor Co, Inc has Online Bids for Heavy Equipment

Eilat Lev, the president of New York-based International Tractor, has been buying and selling equipment at Ritchie Bros. auctions around the world for almost 30 years.

 

 

When he can't attend an auction in person, Eilat bids online- using rbauctionBid-Live to purchase more than US$16 million of equipment to date.

 

Eilat Lev has been traveling the world, buying and selling equipment, for more than 30 years. "International trade is my niche," says Eilat, owner and president of New York based

International TractorCo. Inc. "Like Ritchie Bros., I think globally. Most equipment I buy and sell starts in one continent and ends up in another: from Europe to South America, from Asia to the Middle East. It's all about supply and demand." 

Early in his career, Eilat found that he often crossed paths with Ritchie Bros. "I understood the global marketplace before most people - but Dave Ritchie understood it too," he says. "I would go to remote places looking at machines and someone from Ritchie Bros. would be there the week before or the week after." Intrigued, Eilat attended his first Ritchie Bros. auction in the late 1970s - and he's been a regular customer ever since, buying and selling close to $2oo million of equipment at auctions around the world. In 2007 alone, Eilat registered to bid at more than 100 auctions, purchasing close to $15 million of equipment. Over the years Eilat noticed a changing mindset among equipment users.

"Dave Ritchie transformed the way people in 

 

"Being able to sit at home or in my office and bid live on a machine being sold in an auction 1,ooo or 5,ooo miles away- it's incredible." 

the industry looked at auctions," says Eilat. "He showed why it's better to buy from an unreserved auction than anywhere else: you get the machine today, you pay a fair market price. I take my hat off to Dave: he took a simple concept and, with hard work and good people, turned it into a huge international success story." When Ritchie Bros. used the Internet to open up the global equipment marketplace, Eilat was one of the first to take advantage of the opportunities it presented. "Twenty years ago," says Eilat, "it took a lot of time and money to find equipment outside your local market. Now you can go online and find all the information you need about a machine being sold on the other side of the world."

 Ever the pioneer, Eilat was one of the first people to bid online at a Ritchie Bros. auction when the company introduced its Internet bidding service, rbauctionBidLive, in 2002. To date, he's purchased more than US$16 million worth of equipment using the service. "There are so many auctions now, all over the world, and I can't be at all of them," Eilat explains. "Being able to sit at home or in my office and bid live on a machine being sold in an auction 1,ooo or s,ooo miles away - it's incredible." 

Although he appreciates the ease and convenience of online bidding, Eilat says "it will never replace the experience of being physically at the auction and bidding in person."Although Ritchie Bros. auctions have opened up a world of opportunities for Eilat Lev, it's not just equipment that keeps him coming back. "I'm quite old-fashioned," he says. "I enjoy the personal relationships I've developed with Ritchie Bros. over the years." 

rb RITCHIE BROS.

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