FAQ's

First Time Bidders!

Participating in an auction is like no other shopping experience. Read through these questions to get a sense of what to expect!

Visit https://bid.kwik.ca and set up an account!

You'll need to include a valid form of payment as our system requires pre-authorization of payment methods.

After you make an account, you need to register for each auction. They all have slightly different terms & conditions so you need to agree to each one again. Sorry!

Approval does not take time. It is a single instance as soon as you register for an auction where the system attempts to validate your account. If it successfully validates you, you are ready to bid. If not, it flags the account as potentially fraudulent and passes it off to an employee to manually approve the account.

Validation failure comes from 3 main sources:

1). AVS Mismatch.

2). The Card has been Declined.

3). The Credit Card is Expired.

Here are common mistakes (and how to fix them) that lead to these errors:

1). This refers to an address mismatch. The billing address you submit must exactly match the address on file with your credit card provider. Any differences will flag the account as potentially fraudulent. You must make the appropriate changes to your account and let us know so we can attempt to validate your account once more.

2). This occurs most commonly when the card declines our system’s attempt to place a $1 pre-authorization hold. This is an issue entirely with your credit card provider and must be resolved before we can validate your account.

3). You cannot participate in our auctions with an expired credit card. You will need to supply details for a valid credit card in order to bid.

We use a proxy bidding system, very similar to the one Ebay uses. 

You place a maximum bid and the system will automatically place the next asking bid up to your maximum. 

If bidding goes beyond your maximum, you will receive an email notification allowing you to decide if you wish to increase your maximum bid.

Your maximum bid is private and other bidders cannot see it. You don't have to worry about showing your hand too early!

Our auctions are designed for busy restaurateurs who are participating in our auction while still working in their restaurants.

The timer extension is our anti-sniping feature. 

When a bid is placed within the last 5 minutes, the timer will extend by 5 minutes. This ensures winning is fair, and not skewed towards those who have the time to sit and manually place every bid.

We tell all our bidders that the best strategy is not to sit down for hours and manually place every bid!

Our winningest and happiest customers all follow a similar strategy.

Research the items you're interested in and decide on a maximum bid before the auction day. Make sure you can respond quickly to an email notification so you can decide if you wish to increase your maximum.

It's as simple as that! Our software does all the work for you on auction day, so let it work for you by doing your research beforehand!

You will be sent an email with some details regarding your invoice and how to pick up. We have transitioned to pickups by appointment in a bid to reduce wait times and to ensure social distancing at our warehouse.

You can schedule a pickup at this link: https://calendly.com/kwikauctions/auction-pick-up

All auctions have a pickup deadline and we ask that you have your winnings removed by then (or at least let us know your plan. If you need a few extra days to catch the ferry, we may be able to work something out) as we need every square inch available to prepare for the next auction!

If you require shipping assistance, email shipping@kwik.ca. The following sections detail our shipping policy.

On top of all hammer prices (winning bids) is a 20% buyers premium, and taxes. 

Since we do not own most of what we sell, our business model needs to be very different to a traditional retail model. A retailer has a clear cost to purchase an item and can set a price that allows them to cover that cost as well as other fixed costs (rent, electricity, wages, etc).

In an auction, none of that is fixed. We run unreserved auctions so any item an auction could genuinely go for $1 if that is the only bid on it, even if it is a $10,000 piece of equipment. We don’t buy equipment from a consignor at a cost so we do not have a clear idea of what any auction will cost in full until its over.

We also provide a lot of services that add value to our auctions but are not appropriate to charge any single person for. We appraise and test equipment, but who benefits more from that service? The consignor whose item sells for more, or the buyer who can trust the condition of what they buy? We photograph and research each item. Do we charge the consignor for research services if they are unsure of the model of their equipment, or the buyer for photography services to accurately represent the lot? We have staff because building a catalogue is a slow and pain-staking process and rent because we need a space to store equipment before an auction and to test everything.

This 20% premium can be considered a service fee for all the costs associated with running an auction house.

Shipping

We combine 2 shipping services. Packing, and freight.

Packing

$50/pallet
$5/Box
Hand-Load Free

Freight

Carrier generated quote. No Markups.

We ship across Canada and the Continental US.

Email shipping@kwik.ca with your postal code.

We cannot give you a quote that we can honour after the auction but we can run a spot quote for a standard 40x48 pallet to your postal code. This should give you a sense of the cost to ship to your region.

We receive hundreds of shipping requests in the days after an auction. We may not be able to start fulfilling your request immediately, but we will get a quote for your approval within 1 or 2 days of your request.

From there, pickup is usually next-day, and BC local transit is 1 or 2 days. Cross-province may take longer. Shipping to USA is subject to clearing customs, and can take a long time. Shipping to USA is currently extremely delayed.

Please email shipping@kwik.ca and we'll get the process started!

1). Email us confirming your shipping address and Invoice#

2). We pack your items.

3). We get a quote and send it to you for approval.

4). On approval, we book a pick up with the carrier

5). Receive!

Returns and exchanges

Since we are an auction house, we do not own the majority of what we sell. As such, our risk is significantly higher than traditional retailers and we have different return and exchange policies. 

We don't carry an assortment of sizes/colors for any of our products. We can't exchange a white cutting board for a red one because we may not have a red one in stock, and we do not have the ability to order red ones in. 

This applies to all our items. We don't have varieties of products. Only what has been consigned to us. 

We cannot do exchanges.

Since most of our items are consigned, our consignors are expecting money for items sold. As such, all sales are final, and we can't issue refunds or process returns.

We strive to only sell the best equipment through our auctions, but at the end of the day, most of our lots are used.

We don't offer a warranty or guarantee supporting any of our items because we do not know the history of any item.

We do our best to appraise equipment before it goes to auction, but we aren't technicians performing warranty-approved servicing or any similar service.

Legally, all items are sold as-is, where-is.

Our business model however, relies on repeat customers and your trust in us. We go far above and beyond any other restaurant equipment auction house we've ever seen in our testing and our appraisal. We test as much as we can for function, and we highlight the condition as best as we can. 

When you buy at other auction houses, the risk is all yours, and there is no proof of anything functioning. 

When you buy with us, you know exactly the condition of what you're buying, so you can make an educated decision on what you're willing to pay.