Myth #1: ‘Ritchie Bros. only works with big operations’

Fact or fiction? Let’s look at what actually happened this spring

It’s one of the most common things we hear at Ritchie Bros. when a seller chooses someone else: “We went with the other guys because Ritchie Bros. is only for the big customers.”

We get it. When you see $98.9 million in total sales across an agriculture season, it’s easy to assume the only people calling us have 200-item consignments and a semi-permanent relationship with their banker.

That’s not what the numbers say.

Spring 2026 prairie farm auction results: What the numbers show

Between March 2 and April 29, we ran 67 prairie on-the-farm auctions across Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta. Here’s what the range looked like:

• Smallest sale: 5 lots. One seller. North Battleford, SK.
• Largest sale: 299 lots. Brandon, MB.
• Average sale: 100 lots, $1.47M in equipment sold.
• Median: Most sellers had between 30 and 100 pieces to move.

Of those 67 sales, 43 were single-seller auctions — one customer, one operation, their own day, their own buyers.

The seller in Grande Prairie, AB, who consigned 14 lots? They drew 501 registered bidders. A 30-item farm in Beaverlodge, AB, brought 345 bidders from across Western Canada. That’s not a volume story. That’s a reach story, and reach is the same whether you have 14 pieces or 140.

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Why some sellers think farm auctions are only for large operations

Our competitors have been telling sellers in the prairies that Ritchie Bros. is too corporate to care about a smaller operation; that we’ll bury a 30-item sale in a big event where no one pays attention to your equipment.

Here’s what actually happened: Each of these on-the-farm auctions was its own event, with its own marketing, its own registered bidder list, and its own buyer attention. Whether you have 14 items or 240, it’s irrelevant. The bidders who registered specifically for that sale showed up for that equipment.

Farm equipment auction results: 67 sales, 46 countries, every size operation

Across 67 auctions this spring:

• 6,680+ lots sold across 114 individual sellers
• 15,960+ registered bidders — an average of 750 per sale
• 3,426 unique buyers transacted
• Buyers came from 46 countries, including the US, Mexico, Bolivia, Italy, Egypt and Nigeria

A 2023 John Deere X9 1100 sold for $685,000 to a buyer from Manitoba. A 2023 Case IH 9250 sold for $605,000 to a buyer from Saskatchewan. Those results came from auctions that, by item count, most people would consider mid-size.

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The “big operations only” line is a story competitors tell because they can’t match our reach. The data tells a different story: 67 sales, 5 items to 299, every seller got the same level of attention, the same bidder pool, and the same global network behind them.

If you’ve been told Ritchie Bros. isn’t for your operation, we’d like to show you what we can do for you.

Spring 2026 data — Canadian Prairie Auctions, March 2 to April 29, 2026.

See also

A farmer’s checklist for preparing equipment for resale