Barloworld Handling opens eight showrooms in the UK for its ex-rentals.

Barloworld Handling has opened eight regional showrooms in the UK to display its "Approved Used" forklifts.

The idea behind the new showrooms in Cumbernauld, Warrington, West Bromwich, Doncaster, Leeds, Gateshead, Maidenhead and Thurrock is to provide a range of used forklifts for companies in each region.

"During the current downturn, businesses are looking to reduce costs and get the very best value from their investments. It's no surprise to see many opting for approved used forklifts rather than new," says Neil Edwards, Barloworld Handling's equipment remarketing manager.

As the UK's sole distributor of Hyster equipment, Barloworld has a wide range of used forklifts for sale. The used forklifts are ex-rentals that have been maintained by Barloworld from new. At the end of a long-term contract, each unit is returned to Barloworld's National Used Equipment Centre in Warrington for a thorough evaluation, service and repair before giving it the "Approved Used" quality standard.

There are three levels of truck finishing under the "Approved Used" program - Merit, Quality and Quality+. Quality+ forklifts receive additional preparation, which includes a fully body repaint, new tyres, forks, seat and lift chains, and for electric forklifts, a new battery.

Edwards warns companies against buying forklifts on the open market purely because they are cheaper.
"Cheap trucks supplied without servicing or quality testing might seem a better deal initially, but can prove unreliable and can lead to unproductive downtime through break-downs, expensive parts replacement, additional servicing and can even constitute a safety risk."

Meanwhile, the UK's Cat Lift Truck distributor, Briggs Equipment, has also seen growing demand for used forklifts. May 2009 was one of its best trading months, having achieved sales in excess of GBP1 million. Despite the UK forklift market in general being more than 50% down, Briggs says its used forklift sales is sustained at 2007 levels.

The forklift distributor has just launched a new live auction site for its dealer network in the UK and Europe. Briggs Equipment's used equipment manager John Murphy claims the company has the best online used forklift presence in the industry.

"The database technology that we use, coupled with transparent pricing means that our customers get complete visibility to stock that is updated daily."

Each online auction lasts for about a week and features selected forklifts from Briggs' 600-strong stock database.