With 20 years of activity behind the brand, Mascus is a leading European online used equipment marketplace for selling and buying construction, transportation vehicles, agricultural machinery, forestry, material handling and groundscare equipment, and other heavy equipment. Mascus has operations in 58 countries with 33 local offices across the globe and their local domains are available in 38 languages. Since 2016, Mascus has been part of Ritchie Bros., world’s largest seller of used equipment for the construction, transportation, agriculture, material handling, energy, mining, forestry, marine and other industries.
Mascus also provides tools for professionals to help manage their inventory, understand the used equipment market, publish listings on the Mascus online listing marketplace and reach bigger buying audiences worldwide. Mascus’ tools for professionals are also part of the suite of tools offered under the Ritchie Bros. Asset Solutions brand. Mascus systems power these tools for our professional customers. A few large OEMs and international equipment distributors are already using the RB Asset Solutions: Komatsu Europe, Doosan Infracore Europe, Royal Reesink, etc.
Do you consider Africa an important market for your products?
At the moment Mascus brand is strongest in Europe, where two thirds of our users are coming from. Although the number of users coming from African countries are not very high, only 4%, they do represent an important part of our traffic, as we are seeing quality traffic coming from large professional buyers from Africa, which will further sell the equipment locally.
If yes where can your products be found in Africa? Do you have branches or distributors in Africa?
In terms of clients, we do have 40 African dealers advertising on Mascus, most of them are located in South Africa, where we have a local office. Another country where we see an increase in companies advertising on Mascus is Egypt.
Among our African clients, several Caterpillar dealers from Mantrac Group have been on Mascus for about 10 years (in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Uganda).
We see on Mascus about 3,000 listings of used equipment located in Africa (mostly used trucks, so transportation is the sector with the strongest offer), but Africa is more significant for the demand of used equipment. Buying requests from Africa are reaching countries internationally: Netherlands, Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Poland, France, Spain and many others.
What are the unique aspects of your products?
Our services have always been created to cater to the needs of our sellers and buyers visiting Mascus. We are the connecting link facilitating the trade of used equipment. We offer local and international visibility to companies advertising on Mascus and always strive to increase traffic to their listings. Moreover, our stock management and advertising solutions are helping each and every seller get the best results in their business. Another one of our strengths is the human factor: our local teams who go beyond just selling the Mascus products; they become consultants, advisors to our clients and prospects and keep a close relationship with them.
With potential buyers in mind, we pay close attention to the quality of content we publish on our sites as well as to the ease in finding that piece of equipment that best suits their needs and contacting the seller of that machine. Last but not least, our sites and seller solutions are mobile friendly, since half of the traffic to Mascus comes from mobile devices. It is especially important for the African continent which is heavily accessing internet via mobile phones.
What advice would you give potential customers?
The trade of used heavy machinery and trucks is both a local and global activity nowadays. Because of our international reach and our website being translated in several languages, Mascus opens new doors. You might find a buyer from your own country just like you might sell your machine or truck to a buyer from your neighboring country or the other side of the continent. The advantage of this global visibility is that when your local market for different reasons starts to slow down, you will always be visible somewhere where the economy is in better shape and where machines and trucks are needed.
What we strongly recommend is for sellers to have a mobile friendly website where they can present their stock, answer incoming inquiries fast otherwise buyers go elsewhere, post detailed descriptions of what they are selling including quality photos taken from different angles, a price and comprehensive information about the piece of equipment otherwise they may receive a lot of questions that could be self-answered.
