Vandervoorts selling off final items with an online auction
Vandervoorts General Store, a familiar downtown fixture for the past 70 years, has closed its doors for the last time.
To clear out their physical location, Vandervoorts is auctioning off the last items remaining in their location. Most of the stock has already been depleted, and now Vandervoorts is hoping to offload their remaining fixtures and displays.
In an interview with Kingstonist, Bill Dalton, owner of the downtown fixture, said the store’s closure is not a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather something that had been coming for a while.
“It started with property taxes,” Dalton said. “You know, our business was good, but the City just kept taking more and more money every year, faster than we could make it, so there wasn’t any future I could see. If they’re going to raise the taxes more than our profit every year, then we’re going to get further and further behind. So I decided to sell the building.”
Since the sale of the building in November 2019, Vandervoorts has been working through an organized shutdown which will conclude with an online auction through MaxSold.
When asked what sort of items will be up for auction, Dalton told Kingstonist: “We went through the garages and pulled out things like a large air compressor, bench grinders and a bandsaw. We had, for some reason, used new snow shovels every year and then hung them up in the garage, so we’ve got 10 used snow shovels that will be in the auction. Plus small parts bins that would have held wood screws and electrical fittings. And then there’s the physical displays. We’ve got some nice glass housewares displays, and a whole bunch of the typical Canadian Tire commercial racking, pegboard and shelves, stuff like that.”
Dalton also expressed his hope that MaxSold will provide a larger reach for the sale of his items than could be expected using a local auctioneer or auction house.
“I’m hoping with the MaxSold system, and their social media reach, that they will be able to catch the people who might be interested in store fixtures,” he disclosed. “People who might be as far away as Toronto or Ottawa.”
The majority of the proceeds will go directly to Vandervoorts, with a percentage fee taken by MaxSold.
The auction opened Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020, at 5 p.m. and will run until 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, which offers plenty of time for interested shoppers to place their bids. Should you be a lucky winner, MaxSold will be in touch with your pickup date and time. The dates for picking up items are Saturday, Oct. 31, and Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. Pickups will be scheduled during small windows of time to avoid crowding.
Danielle Forget, Customer & PR Coordinator for MaxSold Inc. told Kingstonist they often get a flurry of last minute bids on the final day of their auctions, and recommend being available at the time the auction is scheduled to close if strongly interested in the items.
Check out the auction, and support this longtime Kingston business one last time: Vandervoorts auction on MaxSold