OT: Don't you just love eBay!

Just sold my car (that I bought off eBay 4 months ago) and have
put 1000's of miles on it, for £700 more than I paid for it!

Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
to be a winner!)

Matt

On or around Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:27:51 +0100, Matthew Maddock
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>Just sold my car (that I bought off eBay 4 months ago) and have
>put 1000's of miles on it, for £700 more than I paid for it!
>
>Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
>eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
>car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
>to be a winner!)

there's hope for my bus auction yet, then...
--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
Satisfying: Satisfy your inner child by eating ten tubes of Smarties
from the Little Book of Complete B***ocks by Alistair Beaton.

On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:27:51 +0100, Matthew Maddock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Just sold my car (that I bought off eBay 4 months ago) and have
> put 1000's of miles on it, for £700 more than I paid for it!

result!

> Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
> eBay - works a treat every time!

No kidding - give 'em the info, show them the show and repeat the info for
good measure.

I'm sure there are some things that sell better with deliberately limited
text but I can't think what off hand.

--
William Tasso

110 V8

On 2006-07-02, Matthew Maddock <[email protected]> wrote:

> Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
> eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
> car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
> to be a winner!)

I've tried to sell two cars on fleabay, the first was an old audi, for
which I attracted no attention at all other than from time wasters
bidding 99p or asking me why I hadn't included a shot of the right
rear -- surely it must be damaged and why was I being so dishonest
(there was no damage at all).

The second was the landy, all I got for that was the 99p bidders, no
emails at all. Lots of photos, lots of description, asking price much
lower than on other sites.

It seems that most cars that sell on ebay go through several listings,
if you look at "completed items", many don't sell and a fair old few
of them have been relisted.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

On or around Mon, 3 Jul 2006 05:47:08 +0100, Ian Rawlings
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>On 2006-07-02, Matthew Maddock <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
>> eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
>> car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
>> to be a winner!)
>
>I've tried to sell two cars on fleabay, the first was an old audi, for
>which I attracted no attention at all other than from time wasters
>bidding 99p or asking me why I hadn't included a shot of the right
>rear -- surely it must be damaged and why was I being so dishonest
>(there was no damage at all).
>
>The second was the landy, all I got for that was the 99p bidders, no
>emails at all. Lots of photos, lots of description, asking price much
>lower than on other sites.
>
>It seems that most cars that sell on ebay go through several listings,
>if you look at "completed items", many don't sell and a fair old few
>of them have been relisted.

FWIW, IME:

high starting bid puts people off - max of about 100 quid for decent motors
or less for old bangers.

high BIN combined with reserve (even if the reserve is low) puts people off
- people assume that because you have a reserve and BIN that the 2 will be
the same or nearly so.
--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" (sieze today, and put
as little trust as you can in tomorrow) Horace (65 - 8 BC) Odes, I.xi.8

> FWIW, IME:
>
> high starting bid puts people off - max of about 100 quid for decent motors
> or less for old bangers.

Agreed. Start low and get people sucked into the auction!

People who tend to buy old bangers don't want to drive to collect so you
are limited to your local area and usually better off putting it in the
local free-ad paper (Trade-it/Loot etc.) My wife bought herself an old
Astra a while ago on eBay - without consulting me first because "It was
cheap"! cost me more to go from Bristol to Middlesbrough to pick it
up - she hadn't actually looked at where it was before bidding! Not
helped by the fact that I had to go straight to a garage in M/bro
and get four new tyres fitted as the ones on there didn't look as
though they had been replaced since it was new - cracked, flat, almost
no tread - MOT must have been done by a 'mate' - no way should it have
passed. Mind you, it was only £75 for four new tyres - given I'd
just paid more than that per corner for the P38 I could hardly complain!

> high BIN combined with reserve (even if the reserve is low) puts people off
> - people assume that because you have a reserve and BIN that the 2 will be
> the same or nearly so.

Exactly - a reserve always puts people off. I almost never bid on a
vehicle with a reserve because most people over value their vehicle.
I once saw a Passat go on 3 times and not meet the reserve, it was
eventually put on £1 with no reserve and sold for absolutely loads more
than it had got anywhere near before! If you vehicle is well described
and well photographed and put on for £1 no reserve then you would be
unlucky if it does not get the current market value - unless you are
in deepest Wales or Scotland - remote areas put people off big time
Why do BIN's put people off? I never got that, even when there is no
reserve it still seems to put people off bidding. Weird!

Matt

On 2006-07-03, Matthew Maddock <[email protected]> wrote:

> People who tend to buy old bangers don't want to drive to collect so
> you are limited to your local area and usually better off putting it
> in the local free-ad paper (Trade-it/Loot etc.)

Hmm, a friend of mine did that, all he got was calls from muppets.
The car was listed at a cheap price as it had no MOT having just
failed on specific, fixable things. People were calling him then
hanging up when he reminded them that it had no MOT, a fact that was
stated very clearly in the advert. He's a dyed-in-the-wool leftie but
even he remarked that not one of them could speak a word of english
and were invariably rude. He sold it in the end to someone who could
read and form sentences. This was in Reading I think.

> Exactly - a reserve always puts people off. I almost never bid on a
> vehicle with a reserve because most people over value their vehicle.

Sod that, I'm not letting a vehicle go for a few hundred quid if it's
worth a few thousand! I put a reserve on my landy of £4,000, similar
vehicles go for over £5,000.

I'd also find it hard to take someone seriously if they bid without
viewing, I tried to use ebay mainly as a means to get the vehicle seen
in the hope that people would contact me to buy it from me properly.
I'd fully expect someone buying through ebay to complain about stupid
things like there not being cup-holders or something like that, after
bidding on an unseen vehicle and forming a contract to buy, then
backing out without notice and somehow think I won't try to drag them
through the small claims court. View the damned thing before *buying*
it FFS!

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

"Matthew Maddock" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> Just sold my car (that I bought off eBay 4 months ago) and have
> put 1000's of miles on it, for £700 more than I paid for it!
>
> Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
> eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
> car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
> to be a winner!)
>
> Matt

I once bought a broken plasma for a hundred or so quid & put it on ebay & it
sold for £800!!!!

Figure that one out!

Nige

On or around Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:27:03 +0100, Matthew Maddock
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>> FWIW, IME:
>>
>> high starting bid puts people off - max of about 100 quid for decent motors
>> or less for old bangers.
>
>Agreed. Start low and get people sucked into the auction!
>
>
>Exactly - a reserve always puts people off. I almost never bid on a
>vehicle with a reserve because most people over value their vehicle.
>I once saw a Passat go on 3 times and not meet the reserve, it was
>eventually put on £1 with no reserve and sold for absolutely loads more
>than it had got anywhere near before! If you vehicle is well described
>and well photographed and put on for £1 no reserve then you would be
>unlucky if it does not get the current market value - unless you are
>in deepest Wales or Scotland - remote areas put people off big time
>Why do BIN's put people off? I never got that, even when there is no
>reserve it still seems to put people off bidding. Weird!

BIN plus reserve makes people think the reserve is high. ferexample,
suppose you have BIN 2500 for something you reckon is worth 1800 tops. If
there's no reserve, then you ignore it and bid anyway. If there's a reserve
you think to yourself, "well, if he's trying for 2500 then the reserve must
be at least 2300, and that's 500 quid heavy."

I tend to put a credible reserve on vehicles at the minimum price I'll sell
for, having observed the market beforehand. Notwithstanding the comments
about £1 start and no reserve, there's the potential to catch a serious cold
if people don't bid for some reason. You can also lower the reserve if the
bidding is slow towards the end of the auction.

--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"There are three sorts of people in the world - those who can count,
and those who can't" (Anon)

On or around Mon, 3 Jul 2006 10:41:27 +0100, Ian Rawlings
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>I'd also find it hard to take someone seriously if they bid without
>viewing, I tried to use ebay mainly as a means to get the vehicle seen
>in the hope that people would contact me to buy it from me properly.
>I'd fully expect someone buying through ebay to complain about stupid
>things like there not being cup-holders or something like that, after
>bidding on an unseen vehicle and forming a contract to buy, then
>backing out without notice and somehow think I won't try to drag them
>through the small claims court. View the damned thing before *buying*
>it FFS!

I've done that, though - bought blind, I mean. The descritption and photos
were good and clear and I wasn't in much doubt - but I took cash to collect
and had the thing been a shed I'd have backed out, citing that the goods
offered were not as described - the flip side of the contract thing on eBay
is that you contract to sell what you're advertising: If you adevrtise it
as excellent condition and so forth and in fact it's a rust-heap, then
you're presumably guilty of misrepresentation in some way. In those
circumstances, I'd not expect to proceed.

it's not always possible to come and look - in my case the disco I was
buying was about 150 miles away...
--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
Confidence: Before important work meetings, boost your confidence by
reading a few pages from "The Tibetan Book of the Dead"
from the Little Book of Complete B***ocks by Alistair Beaton.

On 2006-07-03, Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:

> it's not always possible to come and look - in my case the disco I
> was buying was about 150 miles away...

Oooh as far as that ;-) I've driven more than that for a telly!

The problem that I see with buying blind is that it's perfectly
possible for the seller to describe it accurately but for it to still
not be what you want. Especially with a car, you can get there, have
a look under the bonnet and just not like what you see. You can see
bits of work that might need doing that start adding up, and it's not
really practical to quiz the seller about everything, you're bound to
forget something and there's always the unexpected thing you didn't
think of.

Having said that, every car I've ever bought bar the current Audi has
been the first one that I clapped eyes on once I'd decided to get
one.. The Audi I bought was only the second one I saw.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

On Mon, 3 Jul 2006 12:18:59 +0100, Nige wrote:

> I once bought a broken plasma for a hundred or so quid & put it on ebay
> & it sold for £800!!!!

I've just spotted a seller who bought a job lot of only vaugely tested
(no icon appears when plugged in) laptop HDs or they might want
passwords. 15 drives 20 to 40GB for £37 inc. He now has them up for sale
individually at 99p + 75p P&P with minmal description saying "untested
maybe faulty". Three gone so far at £7.01, £2.20 & £2.30 so it looks like
he'll make his just money back, though I'm dubious about 75p P&P being
enough to cover 1st Class Standard...

--
Cheers [email protected]
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

"Matthew Maddock" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> Just sold my car (that I bought off eBay 4 months ago) and have
> put 1000's of miles on it, for £700 more than I paid for it!
>
> Decent description with loads of photos is the way to go with
> eBay - works a treat every time! I haven't lost money on a
> car in ages. (if you exclude the P38 - that was never going
> to be a winner!)

Well it looks pretty good today as I've just won an auto box.
The packaging crate consists of 3.5V8 for something to bolt it to to keep it
secure in transit, a light blue steel shell in a rangrover silouette to
prevent it from any knocks and 4 wheels at each corner so that it can be
moved easily.

How much... ooooh

£53 quid thank you )

On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:42:39 +0100, Fuzzy <[email protected]> wrote:

> ...
> Well it looks pretty good today as I've just won an auto box.
> The packaging crate consists of 3.5V8 for something to bolt it to to
> keep it
> secure in transit, a light blue steel shell in a rangrover silouette to
> prevent it from any knocks and 4 wheels at each corner so that it can be
> moved easily.
>
> How much... ooooh
>
> £53 quid thank you )

LOL - nice work. now you have to get it home. I'm assuming it's not
driveable at that price.

--
William Tasso

Land Rover - 110 V8
Discovery - V8

"William Tasso" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news[email protected]...
> On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:42:39 +0100, Fuzzy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> ...
>> Well it looks pretty good today as I've just won an auto box.
>> The packaging crate consists of 3.5V8 for something to bolt it to to
>> keep it
>> secure in transit, a light blue steel shell in a rangrover silouette to
>> prevent it from any knocks and 4 wheels at each corner so that it can be
>> moved easily.
>>
>> How much... ooooh
>>
>> £53 quid thank you )
>
> LOL - nice work. now you have to get it home. I'm assuming it's not
> driveable at that price.

Naa not that much of a bargain, nothing to sit on and no diffs in it, oh and
no ECU.

Don't suppose anyone has a 3.5 ECU hanging around