Farmers Turn to Online Shopping

Auctions Plus is an online selling platform which has increased its turnover by $1 billion over the past 12 months.

Can you believe that the first “online sales” used a generator to run the fax machine?

Apart from livestock the sales for machinery increased 428 per cent. Livestock has had record sales for the past financial year, with gross sales reaching $2.35 billion. This figure is up by approximately 1 billion from the previous year.

Apart from the traditional sheep, cattle sales and machinery these auctions have included a working dog by the name of Hoover, which fetched $35 200 which is more than $10 000 above the previous record. The previous record of $22 000 also beats the national record of $25,000 set at Jerilderie in 2019.

Other online sales include Camels and Alpacas. The inability for people to attend in person has seen a lot of sellers go digital. The trend certainly looks set to continue.

More than 675 000 head of cattle were sold which was up by 30% on the previous year. What has surprised everyone is the boom in online machinery and clearance sales.

Auctioneers will sell 200 Camels on Saturday, at Shepparton in Northern Victoria. There is a lot of demand for Camel milk even though the price is $25.00 a liter. Feral camels are a lucrative business in South Australia as previous auctions have fetched between $300 and $600.

Agents say there has been a lot of interest in the auction from families looking for a pet, farmers looking for weed control and farmers in the dairy camel industry. Camels were imported from the middle east in early nineteen hundreds to carry the goods required to build the infrastructure in the center of Australia. When the camels were no longer required the Cameleers (handlers) let them free to roam. Australian camels are very healthy and disease free.

Online is certainly present in all industries. You can understand why online sales are preferable when a farmer has to drive kilometers in the heat to an auction or sit at home with a cold beer and do the same thing. 

What is the craziest thing you have bought online?