Car selling experiances on ebay

mealone

As per the title, have you sold a car via ebay and what was your experiance like?

And what was the value of the car you sold?

tia.

pitkin2020

Sold a car about 18 months ago on ebay and had no problems, you do get lots of chancers offering half what its up for but you get that where ever you advertise now I have found. The car was only worth a grand so not big money. Just remember if you do sell the car on ebay, list it accurately and only accept payment via BACS or cash. Do not accept paypal under any circumstances.

If you are just wanting shot of the car and its a cheapie auction format maybe be best, if not a classified with or wthout best offer would be better.

Also bought from ebay without any problems.

s_b

when it takes 6 phone calls for an ebayer to find you and still ends up in the wrong town i think selling cars has still some way to go
i use autotrader
punters phone
i cut the wheat from the wasters
they turn up
they buy or go
no sleepless nights
easy life
ebay is good for stuff i find in boots of cars

pitkin2020

s_b wrote: »

when it takes 6 phone calls for an ebayer to find you and still ends up in the wrong town i think selling cars has still some way to go
i use autotrader
punters phone
i cut the wheat from the wasters
they turn up
they buy or go
no sleepless nights
easy life
ebay is good for stuff i find in boots of cars

Are you kidding me that still happens with autotrader especially now as a lot of people are prepared to go much further to get a car then they would of 10+ years ago.
For private sellers ebay is a third of the cost of the autotrader but if you have a run of the mill car you are competing with a lot of other sellers so you need to make it stand out. The autotrader mag seems to be getting thinner and thinner every year yet the cost still seems to be rising, bit like the yellow pages in fact.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Ebay, I didn't use the auction, but used classified ad with good result, (i once tried an auction which was ruined by dishonourable trailer trash non buyer who failed to turn up, never again).

Room for lots of pics and a full description, and reasonably cheap.

Yes idiots trying to offer idiot funny money, i didn't waste my time with them and didn't allow any to know my whereabouts (number plate not visible on pics), twenty seconds of phone conversation or reading a semi literate message soon sorted the possible from the avoidable.

£15K by credit transfer, good sale, genuine buyer got probably the best vehicle in it's class for a fair price, both of us happy...he was the only person to see the vehicle.

Decent buyers are out there...if you the seller are a man or woman of your word too, then a conversation between two like minded people will reveal each to the other...the converse is true too.

edit...i don't tell anyone my exact home address until they phone me from reasonably near my home at the due appointment time, tell all and sundry where you live and the vehicle the ne'er do wells need for spares/ringing/export/ramraiding might well vanish.

s_b

strangely i looked at the autotrader mag last week
it used to be delivered every week free as a user of autotrader,that stopped donks ago then we got rolls of calenders that for two years had all the days and dates wrong (you couldnt make it up) anyway yes ebay still attracts people i dont want,autotrader attracts real buyers from all over the country and you get the feeling on the phone pretty sharpish usually if they are genuine,
ebay i dont get that
everyone to their own, but i like the fixed cost of autotrader,i like the fact most of the time the site is easy navigable and i also like the fact i can pitch my prices to compete with upstarts very easily online

scheming_gypsy

Sold a fair few on eBay and never had any issues with any..

First was a Celica that had been in a crash. Got about £1700 as it needed repairing; the bloke sent somebody with a recovery truck. He paid cash and went on his way
Second was a golf that had been in a crash. He picked me up, took me to the garage where it was, paid me £900 and then gave me a lift home
Another Celica - sold it on eBay back to the person i bought it off. He handed over the £850 and went off double happy as the car was spotless
Supra - sold it to a Dutch bloke for £2400 and he ummed and ah'ed when he came to collected it and offered me £2000 which i accepted as he'd be 800 miles away when he realised the it needed some work doing.
BMW - Sold for £600. Bloke came, handed over the cash and went away happy
Jeep Grand Cherokee. Bloke handed over his £1300 and drove off into the sunset
MR2 - another £650 and another happy punter
Volvo - came down, stuck it on his trailer and put £350 in my paw and off he went


I put absolutely everything on the auction and one of my mates tells me i put far too much on although strangely enough whenever he's sold cars on there he doesn't put a lot of info on, gets less than he really should and has problems with the buyers

pitkin2020

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Sold a fair few on eBay and never had any issues with any..

First was a Celica that had been in a crash. Got about £1700 as it needed repairing; the bloke sent somebody with a recovery truck. He paid cash and went on his way
Second was a golf that had been in a crash. He picked me up, took me to the garage where it was, paid me £900 and then gave me a lift home
Another Celica - sold it on eBay back to the person i bought it off. He handed over the £850 and went off double happy as the car was spotless
Supra - sold it to a Dutch bloke for £2400 and he ummed and ah'ed when he came to collected it and offered me £2000 which i accepted as he'd be 800 miles away when he realised the it needed some work doing.
BMW - Sold for £600. Bloke came, handed over the cash and went away happy
Jeep Grand Cherokee. Bloke handed over his £1300 and drove off into the sunset
MR2 - another £650 and another happy punter
Volvo - came down, stuck it on his trailer and put £350 in my paw and off he went


I put absolutely everything on the auction and one of my mates tells me i put far too much on although strangely enough whenever he's sold cars on there he doesn't put a lot of info on, gets less than he really should and has problems with the buyers

Thats the key though, people want to know everything about the car from the comfort of their own home, but not putting all the details you come across as someone new to ebay or your trying to hide something. There is nothing worse as something listed as in ex condition or even when you phone them up and they say ex cond to get there and find most panels are stoved in.

There was a brilliant listing on ebay the other day, where the seller had listed the car as faultless and in excellent condition, he then added some more gumpf about features before listing the bad bits, which was a huge list detailing which of those features didn't work and pointing out all the rust, dents and scratches which clearly didn't tie in with the excellent condition he started out with lol

scheming_gypsy

yeah i even list every receipt that i've got including service history dates. If they don't want to read it they don't have to but they know exactly what they're coming to buy

marlot

I sold a 10 year old low mileage motorbike for £2500 on ebay recently. I listed every MOT and service (with the mileages). Lots of pictures, lots of description. Highlighting any negative aspects. Put a link to the ad on the owners club website. Chap who bought it was very happy. Nobody came to see it before the auction end.

BenL

We recently sold a £600 Ford KA on ebay. Nobody came to look before hand and the amount of watches went up throughout the listing. We did get a few phone calls in the last few hours of the listing from people making offers trying to get the auction ended before the time was due. As ever on ebay most bids come in the last hour so you think you are doing badly and then it jumps massively and you get a good price.

When the car was first listed we had a spate of phone calls as well offering low amounts so I guess these people have their ebay set for newly listed items to be shown first on their screen.

We sold the car twice in the end, the first time a guy from Scotland won it but had an accident on the way to pick it up. We then re-listed it and sold it again a week later. A girl and her b/f came one night and had a little look around it, paid and drove off.

I have also sold a van for £1200 on ebay. I had a few phone calls from the eventual winner asking questions as he was again a long distance. He was probably the only serious bidder who I spoke to about the van. I was honest with the listing, photos and when speaking to him. I picked him up from the train station as well when coming to pick up the van.

He had a test drive, paid and left, never to be heard from again so all went well.

The van had been MOT'd and passed in the few days before the auction was started so this gives bidders the confidence they will get at least a year of pretty much trouble free motoring.


I used ebay to find my motorhome when buying as it is a great place for classified listings. This was sold by a dealer though so the actual viewing and purchasing was done offline just like a standard sale.

Ben