Thrifty Tip Of The Day – Food Auctions

Posted by oshun on April 29, 2009

Grocery Food Auctions

One of the latest, and most unlikely of, crazes coming out of our economic recession is the auctioning of groceries.

Food retailers who are looking to unload excess inventory are now doing business with the auction houses who have found a new market in thousands of families across the country who are looking to make their grocery dollars stretch as far as possible.

The general idea is you can purchase bulk items that may have contained one damaged unit, or are otherwise slightly imperfect, but are still edible and sell-able (though they might be slightly after the “sell by” date). According to Tip Hero, a recent Time magazine reported savings from these types of sales can run anywhere from 25-50%.

The Time article also mentions the auctioneer featured in the video below. The auctioneer, Kirk Williams, whose rural Pennsylvania auctions are extremely profitable, is now planning to expand his booming business into hungry Northeast markets such as New York City.

This new trend seems to be growing in popularity and is effectively taking the place, in part, of bargain chains such as the 99 Cent store, and other retailers who purchased these types of goods and sold them at a discounted price to consumers. Through auctions, the goods move faster and go straight to households, basically cutting out the middle man.