Best bike selling medium

Bikers and riding
RandG
Posts: 1121
Joined: Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:37 pm
Has thanked: 15 times
Been thanked: 70 times

Re: Best bike selling medium

Post by RandG »

daveuprite wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 8:47 am I like ebay, sure you get timewasters, but you get them everywhere. You're less likely to get them when you advertise at a fixed price, rather than an auction - although you usually get more interest with a low start price auction.

There are ways to winnow out the worst of the tyre-kickers. Insist that the winner of the auction or the 'buy now' purchaser contacts you via ebay within a fixed timeframe and try to exchange telephone numbers (unfortunately ebay doesn't like this because they are worried that you will do a deal off ebay and they won't get their fees, but there are ways around it).

There's nothing quite like actually talking with the buyer/seller, or preferably meeting up. Personally I much prefer to see a bike before bidding, but I've bought lots of race/track bikes unseen and taken a gamble rather than lose them. In which case, the key is to ask lots of probing questions and judge the condition by the replies, and ask for extra photos of the whole bike from every angle. An honest seller won't hesitate to do any of that. I sold a lot of bikes with long and detailed descriptions, to the point of boredom. If the window-shopper gets bored, then they wouldn't buy it anyway. A serious shopper will welcome loads of information. There's nothing worse than two badly taken photos and a one-line "Nice bike, good runner" description. I just click straight past those ads.

You need to deter that awful kind of buyer who bids and wins, then turns up to pay and tries to beat the winning price down. Insist in the advert on a good size non-returnable deposit within a fixed timeframe of auction-end (and if it doesn't arrive, move to the second bidder or re-advertise). State in the ad that the winning price is a commitment to buy at that price and not to enter into further negotiations later.

Personally I'd say that buyers on ebay are more of a problem than sellers, although ebay nearly always comes down on the side of buyers in any dispute. With the exception of willful scammers, most buyers just want to get their bike sold for as much as possible, while many on the buying side are just serial window-shoppers or looking for an unrealistic bargain. It's always re-assuring to get a message from an interested buyer (before they bid) that they are 'a serious buyer with cash funds available today, in the market to buy a CBR600RR' or whatever. If this is accompanied by some intelligent questions about the bike that show some pre-knowledge, it's very encouraging for sellers. Lots of timewasters would not bother to do this.
This could've been me that wrote that, everything said above is exactly how I do things.

Serious buyers come with knowledge, they will ask the questions the tyre kickers won't, you will know them when they ask quirky questions about the bike that only an owner or a very well researched perspective buyer will know.
SteveR
Posts: 3252
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:09 pm
Has thanked: 233 times
Been thanked: 83 times

Re: Best bike selling medium

Post by SteveR »

Brenhden wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:23 pm I'd start here, then ebay.
I go:

Forum/s
eBay
Autotrader

Have also sold on a specialised FB page, but I am not really a user ;)
Post Reply

Return to “ADVENTURE BIKE RIDER”