Used machinery dealers ‘to do business’ at Drupa

Drupa will provide used machinery dealers and end users with an active marketplace to buy and sell equipment, while the OEM and used machinery markets will continue to work closely to support one another across the world.
 
Mike Steele, chairman of the British Used Printing Machinery Suppliers Association (BUPMSA), said used machinery dealers view tradeshows like Drupa differently to OEMs and will come to meet other dealers and end users with the explicit aim of buying and selling kit.
 
‘Dealers and end users will come to the show with a shopping list of machinery they want to buy and, equally important, a list of kit they want to sell,’ said Steele.
 
‘They are there to do business. There’ll be comparatively little equipment on the floor, as that tends not to happen these days.’
 
The buying and selling of used printing machinery is a fully international market that will be widely represented at Drupa. Nearly 60 used machinery dealers are scheduled to exhibit at Drupa 2012, with many operating out of Europe.
 
Steele said: ‘The UK, Netherlands and Germany are the biggest countries for used machinery dealers in terms of their number and size. These companies then have networks extending out into other markets.

'India and Latin America are big markets for used machinery, as is the Middle East, where the used machinery market is still buoyant.’
                                        
This gravitation towards northern Europe places dealers close to many of the main printing machinery OEMs on the continent, such as Heidelberg, Komori and manroland, a position that is central to the relationship between press manufacturers and the used printing machinery market according to Steele.
 
He said: ‘Nobody buys a brand new machine without something going out the factory door, and they don’t just buy that kind of heavy metal to bin it. Like the used car market, they buy it, use it and then move it on.
 
‘OEMs and used machinery dealers rely on each other to facilitate this and very often manufacturers will have a dealer or two in their pocket and will have a dealer involved in the sale of new machinery to help move old machinery on.’