Selling your Car on eBay
There is an increasing trend for people selling their car on eBay motors, rather than going the traditional route of putting an ad in Auto Trader. Unlike an Auto Trader advert you have much more control over how your advert is displayed on eBay as as been able to display detailed information about your vehicle.
To achieve the best price when selling your car on eBay here’s some profitable tips:
Pictures - lots of ‘em!: Buyers like to see plenty of pictures so they can get an idea of what your car is like. Before you start taking pictures make sure you give the car a good clean, inside and out, so it is looking it’s best. Then take around 20 exterior and interior shots. Cars always look best in the sunshine so look out for the good weather and seize the snapping opportunity! Once you have your pictures choose the best 10-12 and use them in your auction.
Protect your Data: To avoid car cloning, blank your number plate out on the images you display on the auction. Most image manipulation software will have a blur or pixelate feature which is useful for this purpose.
Be honest: There is no gain to be made from describing your car as something it is not. If the auction winner comes to collect the vehicle and discovers they have been mislead, they will simply walk away. If you car has known problems, detail them in the description. A lot of buyers on eBay are in the motor trade and take any problems into account when biding - it won’t make them lose interest.
Low bid price attracts interest: eBay is such a busy site these days that you can take the risk of starting bidding at 1p safe in the knowledge that your car will usually achieve its market price. Sure, for piece of mind you can set a reserve, but a 1p no reserve auction always attracts more interest from bidders.
Answer questions: Once the auction is live you’ll start getting questions from existing and potential bidders. Be sure to answer these questions promptly or bidders interest might switch to another vehicle.
Prepare your documentation: Any service history is a bonus but the most important document to have is the V5 logbook. Without this, you cannot sell your vehicle legally and no purchase will pay for a vehicle that does not have a logbook.
Guest Post from The Van Man who is an expert on Van Hire
Posted by: The Van Man
Interesting topic this one. I’ve done some used car sales before but from what is available I’d say that the selection on ebay is actually above average. Not only that, but it remains one of the few places that you can find a genuine bargain. I recently found a car going for £7,000 when in fact the market price was almost double that.
It just happened that the chap was working away and didn’t need the motor any more, plus he wanted a quick sale. I’m not going to tell you the vehicle, by the way, because I want to keep that little bargain to myself when I am in more of a position to buy. I’ll try to follow this up with an ‘ebay from the buyer’s view’ for cars in the future.
Interesting to hear that you’ve spotted some genuine bargains. I sometimes wonder if ebay fools people into thinking they are getting a bargain when in fact prices are comparable with other places.
An ‘ebay from the buyers point of view’ article should definitely be worth a read.
I’m not sure if it’s ebay that’s fooling people, or the people themselves. It was a long time ago when the true bargains were to be had on ebay - these days it’s the hidden gems that you have to look out for.
I’ll explore a little bit more of what ebay has to offer - but from what I’ve seen (and read) it looks to be a genuinely viable purchasing platform. Most impressive given how uneasy ‘live’ car auctions can make people feel.
With regards to the ‘bargain’ aspect I think if you have a few thousand to spend then bargains are there to be had if you look carefully (people wanting a quick, no hassle sale is one reason). However if you are at the lower end of the scale (under £1000) then you are competing with more knowledgable who look to tidy a car up and flip it for a quick sale.
One of the reasons why you so sometimes see a ‘bargain’ is that sellers haven’t put enough information to inspire confidence in bidders. eBay relies on sellers inspiring trust in buyers and that’s done by giving them the information they need.
Of course many sellers put in a lot of time and effort (it’s interetsing to see videos from vzaar.com being used more and more) but those that don’t risk losing out.
The real bargain I found was because the guy apparently wanted a quick sale (no HPI and the car was fine so it looked above board). Ebay should be good for that sort of deal too.