OT: Don't you just love eBay!

On or around Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:27:51 +0100, Matthew Maddock enlightened us thusly:

there's hope for my bus auction yet, then...

result!

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.

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.

On or around Mon, 3 Jul 2006 05:47:08 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

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.

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!

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

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.

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!

"Matthew Maddock" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...

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 enlightened us thusly:

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.

On or around Mon, 3 Jul 2006 10:41:27 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

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...

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.

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 =A337 inc. He now has them up for sa= le individually at 99p + 75p P&P with minmal description saying "untested maybe faulty". Three gone so far at =A37.01, =A32.20 & =A32.30 so it loo= ks like he'll make his just money back, though I'm dubious about 75p P&P being enough to cover 1st Class Standard...

"Matthew Maddock" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...

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

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 :D