States looking to unload surplus property used to do little more than take out an advertisement in the local newspaper, hang an “Open” sign at a warehouse and set up a cash register.
Not anymore. This spring, Vermont will begin selling its surplus goods on eBay, the online auction site. The goal is to attract more bidders and bring in more revenue to state coffers, says Mark Casey, the state’s Surplus Property Programs assistant.
“We can move a lot more stuff,” Casey says from his office at the warehouse in the central Vermont town of Waterbury.
Vermont will be joining a number of states that have turned to the Internet — or plan to do so — to sell surplus and unclaimed property.
Rhode Island and Georgia are the most recent to do so. Other states turning to online auctions include Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas, according to an eBay search, state officials and surplus-property Web sites.
“More and more states are seeing a better return on their investments because, with a simple photograph and description, you can reach tens of thousands of people,” says Curt Howard, president of the National Association of State Agencies for Surplus Property.
Howard, who also is the administrator of the State and Federal Surplus Property Program for Illinois, says his state is considering Internet-only sales within the next year to 18 months.
In Rhode Island, the General Treasurer’s Office concluded a successful experiment with an eBay sale of unclaimed property Dec. 14-Jan. 11, says David Salvatore, a manager at the office.
Rhode Island pulled in $40,000 from the eBay sale, which included 80 items declared unclaimed in 2007, Salvatore says. By comparison, the last in-person auction, featuring items from the past decade, generated $300,000 — or an average of $30,000 per year…