[s-cars] Re: selling your S6 on eBay

[CyberPoet]

------------------------
Richard Wrote:
Still have the S6 for sale, no real lookers, and thinking of EBAY. Any
BTDT and warnings re EBAY?
------------------------
As a frequent eBay seller (and sometimes buyer), here is what you
should know:

(A) On high dollar personal luxury items, such as cars
and motorcycles, it is rather common for the winning
bidder not to pay. People dream, people want, and
people get auction fever -- and then they realize they
don't have the funds, haven't seen the vehicle, can't
get the financing, etc. Under US Law, an ebay agreement
to buy is legally binding, but most sellers of single
vehicles aren't going to bother with the hassle of
going after someone across the country who didn't pay.
There are ways around this, such as a requirement for
all valid bidders to submit by fax a letter from their
bank saying they can cover bidding up to a certain
amount.

(B) eBay gets their fees, both front and back. To list
the vehicle, it will cost you a percentage of the
minimum bid, plus a listing fee and a reserve fee if a
reserve price is chosen. If the sale closes, they will
take a percentage of that too (whether the buyer pays
or not -- if they don't pay, the final valuation fee
can be waived, but only by relisting the vehicle for
sale through eBay a 2nd time -- and if a second buyer
doesn't pay, you're screwed).

(C) Because of the nature of eBay, most bidders will
never visit the car before the bidding closes, and the
result is that the high bid will probably be
substantially lower than you might expect.

(D) The best place to start selling your vehicle
yourself is through the auto trader
(www.autotrader.com), which publishes weekly vehicle
for-sale magazines (one per state, normally) which list
at every gas station and magazine rack in the country.
They charge an one-time flat fee rate until the car
actually sells. If you live close to the border of
another state, consider listing it in both. Most people
I know who have bought used have gone through there to
find sellers of vehicles (including our current Audi).
Place a realistic price there and expect to go down by
up to 10% (going down more if it is still listed after
3 weeks, because it means you're asking too much).

(E) Pull a car-fax report for the vehicle, place the info
on a web-page and make it accessible to any interested
parties (whether you go through ebay or through the
auto trader); this helps assure buyers of what they are
getting. Also visit JDEdwards.com and carpoint.com and
get value estimations based on blue-book for the car,
so you know that the pricing you are requesting isn't
too far out of acceptable range (no reasonable buyer is
going to give you substantially over
blue-book/black-book pricing, even with various add-ons
and extra's, and could be part of the reason it hasn't
moved).

Good Luck
=-= Marc Glasgow
Tampa's Most Reliable Mac Consultant since 1990
www.cyberpoet.net