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The Ultrasound Trader’s
Seller Guide
The following guide has been prepared to help you position your ultrasound system in the best light for any potential buyer. If you have any additional questions or concerns feel free to call The Ultrasound Trader.
Understanding Your Competition & the Market
Your main competition to selling our system on your own is the pre-owned ultrasound dealer. There are numerous ultrasound dealers out there, only a small handful of them specialize in ultrasounds and an even small group would be considered quality companies with an impeccable reputation. Here are some points to understand how these dealers work.
- Except for the few high end companies, dealers source their equipment from anywhere they can. Their systems may have seen very heavy and rough use in a hospital, our may have had light to moderate use in a physicians office.
- Almost all dealers offer a short term (30, 60 or 90 day) warranty. In almost every case these warranties are not underwritten, but are more likely a wish and a hope that nothing goes wrong.
- Dealers understand the systems that they have in stock, they have identified and pulled off the system configurations and can tell any potential customer that calls what options are included with each system.
- The ultrasound market is very fluid and technology changes very rapidly. Not quite as bad as the personal computer (PC) market, the ultrasound technology continues to advance every year, making older systems lose significant value over relatively few years.
How to Position your System to Sell
Knowing your competition and the market can provide the knowledge needed to get your system sold quickly and for a fair price. Here are the key issues and points potential buyers are looking for.
- Devil is in the Details – Know what you are selling. There are just as many options if not more on an ultrasound as there are on an automobile. Can you imaging seriously considering buying a pickup truck from an ad the reads “2003 Ford Pickup for Sale” with no other details. Engine size, model, automatic, air conditioning, bed liner, sound system upgrade and mileage would be just few of the details that a buyer would want to know.
Find your original paperwork, get into your configuration screen, get the exact model number, is DICOM enabled, all calculation packages that are loaded, identify your software revision, is it currently under service contract, anything and everything you can find out to give a potential buyer a complete description of your ultrasound.
- Price It Right – We all know examples people that have tried to get top dollar for their house only to see it sit on the real estate market for months and months, and then start lowering the price until finally someone buys it. All during this time numerous buyers have overlooked the property due to its price being too high. Additionally we have had sellers list their equipment for sale for top dollar only to end up selling it to a dealer for pennies on the dollar. If they had listed the system at a price just below the going dealer price they could have earned thousands of dollars more.
Do your research! Talk to us; spend some time on the internet, get a good feeling of what your system is worth so you can price it to sell. Your private office or imaging center is a business and this is a business asset that you need to move, not spend months and months holding out for top dollar.
- Add a Warranty – Regardless if the some of the dealer warranties are nothing more than a hope and a pray, they still offer some level of confidence for buyers. The dealer market represents competition to you selling your system on your own, they want you to fail so they can eventually buy your system for far below market price. You must meet or beat your competition to get noticed
We are in the process of developing a program that allows you to add a short term warranty to your system. There is no cost to you until your system sells so you have only upside potential that your ultrasound is more attractive to potential buyers. Call us and have us explain this program.
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