A broker is not the same as a dealer holding stock
A machinery dealer buys equipment, keeps it in a warehouse and makes a living selling it. The inventory is the business, so the recommendation tends to look a lot like whatever happens to be parked inside.
An independent broker has no such incentive, because there is no such stock. We start from what you need to produce and look for the machine across the whole European market: industrial auctions, plant closures, line upgrades, manufacturers taking equipment back in trade, other dealers. If the best option is in a warehouse in Brescia and the second best is in a factory shutting down in the Rhineland, we put both in front of you.
MAKINTER works this way, with used machinery from any industrial sector, and does business in Spanish, English and French.
The real problem with buying in Europe from Central America
The difficulty is not finding machines. Europe is full of good equipment that is available right now. The difficulty is everything that sits between seeing a listing and having the machine running in your plant:
- You cannot go and see it. One trip to Europe to inspect three machines costs more than the commission on a good share of these deals.
- The seller may not be what you think. There are listings with photos lifted from catalogues, and sellers who ask for a deposit and disappear.
- Language. A listing in German or Italian, a wiring diagram in Polish, a call to a maintenance manager who does not speak English.
- Many European sellers sell ex works and want nothing to do with export. They will not dismantle, will not load, will not issue an EUR.1, will not treat the timber.
- VAT. A badly documented export ends up costing an extra 21 % that nobody refunds.
- Payment. Wiring tens of thousands of euros to an unknown account in another country, with no guarantee and no practical recourse if something goes wrong.
Every one of these points can be dealt with. The problem is that they all have to be dealt with, in order, and failing on a single one is enough to break the deal or make it far more expensive overnight.
What a broker does, in concrete terms
- Turn the need into a specification. You say “I want to fill 6,000 bottles an hour of 500 ml PET”. That is not a machine: it is three or four possible configurations at very different prices. Getting this right at the start saves 80 % of the problems that come later.
- Search the market, not a warehouse. Including machines that never get advertised because they change hands between people who know each other first.
- Check the seller. That the company genuinely exists, that it owns the machine, and whether the machine is free of liens or still under finance.
- Check the machine. Serial number, real year of manufacture, running hours, whether it can be seen under power, photos and video of that specific machine rather than of the model.
- Negotiate. An asking price is not a market price, and the room to move changes a great deal depending on why the machine is being sold.
- Coordinate the way out. Dismantling, crane, crating in timber treated to ISPM 15, transport to the port, export clearance.
- Put the paperwork in order. Commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, EUR.1 certificate of origin where the agreement between the European Union and Central America applies, and the import declaration at destination.
- Leave a line open afterwards. Who supplies spare parts, who holds the manuals, who you call when something fails six months in.
When you don't need a broker
This is worth saying, because a broker who claims you always need a broker does not deserve much trust:
- If you already know the seller and have bought from them before without trouble, stay with them.
- If the equipment is small, fits on a pallet and is worth a few thousand euros, the intermediation weighs too heavily on the total.
- If the manufacturer has a subsidiary or an official distributor in your country and offers you a refurbished unit with a factory warranty, compare it seriously: sometimes they win.
- If your company already has a purchasing department with people in Europe, you already have your in-house broker.
A broker earns their place when the machine is large, the seller is far away, the language is not yours and a mistake costs more than the service. That describes buying European industrial machinery from Central America fairly well.
How the fee works and why you should know up front
An intermediary can be paid in three ways: a commission agreed with the buyer, a commission from the seller, or a margin between what they pay and what they invoice. None of them is improper. The one that causes trouble is the one nobody mentions.
Always ask any intermediary this exact question: “tell me who is paying you on this deal”. The answer tells you which side of the table they are sitting on. At MAKINTER the terms are agreed deal by deal and put in writing before any work begins.
It works the other way round too: selling
If you have an idle line, a machine you have replaced or a plant that is closing, the problem is the same from the other side: your buyer is probably not in your country. Equipment that interests nobody in your local market can be exactly what a company on another continent is looking for. You can raise it through sell an asset.
What you should demand of any broker
- That they show you photos and video of the specific machine, with the serial number visible, not of the model in general.
- That they tell you who the current owner is and why they are selling.
- That they give you a cost breakdown all the way to your door, not just the price of the machine. You can check it against the transport cost guide.
- That they send you the nameplate and the wiring diagram before you pay anything, so you can go over the electrical conversion.
- That they accept you sending an independent technician to inspect the machine, or that they arrange a third-party inspection.
- That they tell you what happens if the machine is not what it was said to be. If there is no answer to that question, there is no deal.
Getting started
If you have a specific need, the first step costs nothing: tell us what you want to produce, at what rate and where the plant is. With that we can tell you whether it exists on the European market, in what price range and on what timeline. Write to info@makinter.com or message us on WhatsApp at +34 657 14 48 34, or use find an asset.
If you would rather see what is available first, the inventory is open, and how to check a European seller will serve you just as well if you decide to go it alone.
