Auction prices

[Just_me]

Hi all, I hope this is the right place to ask. I’m looking into buying large amounts of timber from Forestry England. Well large for me circa 500 tonne. They use an auction type way of selling. As I’m new to this and only bought from suppliers before, I’ve literally no idea what price per tonne to bid. They don’t seem to be the same as other auctions where you can see the current bid. It seem more of a ‘sealed bid’ type of affair. 
any advice or guidance re prices for softwood and hardwood at roadside. Tia. 

[gdh]

If it's anything like the Welsh version check what paperwork you need, I had to have health and safety plans, haulier questionnaires, first aid training and forestry works manager training just to buy roadside and still failed on some minor things so I I've stopped trying because it's too geared towards the massive buyers.

 

In terms of bids I would put £55 for softwood and £80 for hard but you never know who could put £90 or £100 in these days.

[Squaredy]

8 hours ago, Just_me said:

Hi all, I hope this is the right place to ask. I’m looking into buying large amounts of timber from Forestry England. Well large for me circa 500 tonne. They use an auction type way of selling. As I’m new to this and only bought from suppliers before, I’ve literally no idea what price per tonne to bid. They don’t seem to be the same as other auctions where you can see the current bid. It seem more of a ‘sealed bid’ type of affair. 
any advice or guidance re prices for softwood and hardwood at roadside. Tia. 

I have used it just once.  Most of the paperwork hassle was avoided by using timber hauliers who were used to dealing with FC.  I did still have to prove I had £10 million public liability insurance.

 

As for prices, the FC do publish average prices once a year I believe, so this might give you an idea.

[spuddog0507]

I tried this about 8/9 year ago, back then it would tell you winning bid price per tonne once auction had finished, and yes you guessed it the winning bid was all ways 50p 75p or a £1 a tonne more than i bid, i would sit there and look where the location of the timber was from me then work out haulage costs and come up with a final price per tonne, I never won a auction and last one i bid on i put a bid in at £5 a tonne over average cost and still got out bid, personally i think some of the big biomass co,s  have it sawn up but you can all ways try, A harvesting co have done a smallish job (400 tonne) near me consisting of ash oak,beech sycamore birch etc all good processor sized firewood and its gone for chip at £42 a tonne, i would of gladly given £60 a tonne for it and as a firewood producer this is what we are up against,,

[Vedhoggar]

Forest Research publish information on average prices per m3 standing and at roadside twice a year for various categories like standing softwood, roundwood (roadside) as well as small roundwood (7cm - 14cm TD) with data to March 2024 on 16/05/24 this year and data to Sept 2024 on 14/11/24. Information can be found on their website in Tools and Resources under Timber Statistics. 

[Dan Maynard]

7 hours ago, spuddog0507 said:

the winning bid was all ways 50p 75p or a £1 a tonne more than i bid

I'm not saying I know, but this could be just the auction process - eBay is like this.  Eg if I bid £20 and you bid £30 then your bid gets increased to £21, you win and take it for £21.

 

But if someone else went in at £25 then you'd end up paying £26.

[NJA]

Make sure you submit a figure that you wont have regrets with afterwards, whatever way it goes.

Work out highest you'd be comfortable paying to still make money.  If you win you don't think 'oh crap I overpaid as I was desparate not to lose it' as you submitted a price you were happy paying.  If you lose it you think 'oh well I went as high as I could, any higher wouldn't have been profitable for me'

Don't worry too much what the market rate is, work out what its worth to you in your business.  Probably no one else can tell you that.

Hope this helps.

[spuddog0507]

7 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

I'm not saying I know, but this could be just the auction process - eBay is like this.  Eg if I bid £20 and you bid £30 then your bid gets increased to £21, you win and take it for £21.

 

But if someone else went in at £25 then you'd end up paying £26.

yes i know how it works as spend half my life either in a auction or on a online auction, yes we do get some bargains and yes some items make much more than i am prepared to pay,, The point i was trying to make was that the big Co,s are willing, or was willing,, to pay over the odds to may be ensure a steady supply of timber into there yards,, i cant really comment on todays FC auctions but as in my original post i was stating what my past experience was,,