AVE — Ventes aux enchères publiques

AVE runs public auctions of second-hand professional equipment in France, alongside valuation and inventory work. Its speciality is the hospitality trade: when a restaurant, hotel or catering business closes, its ovens, refrigerated cabinets, cold-room shelving and service furniture come through sales like these, often several hundred lots at a time.

What you can buy

• Catering equipment — ovens, cooking ranges, washing and preparation lines.
• Refrigeration, including positive and negative refrigerated cabinets and cold-room racking.
• Dining room furniture.
• Display cabinets and service furniture.

How the bidding works

Two details matter here. First, many sales are explicitly sans prix de réserve — no reserve, so lots sell at whatever they make. Second, the closing mechanism is staggered and stated precisely: bidding on lot 1 ends at 11:00, then a lot every thirty seconds after it, with any lot receiving a bid in its final minute extended. Bidding itself runs on the moniteurdesventes.com platform, which the auction notices link to.

What to check before you bid

A thirty-second cadence means a 600-lot sale takes five hours to close and you need to be present for your part of it, or leave a maximum. No-reserve sales can go very cheap or very expensive depending on who turns up. Professional catering equipment is heavy and often needs three-phase power and a dismantling plan — check the collection arrangements on the notice before bidding. The site is in French.