The eBay experience thread

[Guest]

OK, here's the crack with eBay. I find it a useful buying resource for chod. A great deal of parts for the Amazon \ 480 \ 305 have come from sellers there. In fact, the latter two cars were bought off the bay for a very reasonable price.

 

The thing is, as a seller, eBay is dismal. The fees are crippling and the items I sell never seem to attract any decent bids. Their latest DRM insight smacks of a particuarly painful performance review at work, and I object to jumping through hoops for a service I'm paying for anyway.

 

What I'm after are your experiences. For all its [many] faults eBay is still probably the best thing for putting your wares in front of a large audience. Most of all, I'm just feeling spiteful because a bidder with crap feedback won my alloys for £13 after several other auction types failed to sell the wheels. I tried a BIN, then a BIN with offers, and then a standard auction with reserve. Then a no reserve auction (the only one to get the shite bids) finally got some interest plus a thousand idiotic questions that could have been answered by reading the listing I wrote.

 

To be honest the bloke who's bought them probably won't show up, because his feedback's wretched. I know about the market value \ it's eBay so tough shit type sentiments, but £13 is less than weigh in money.

 

I'll stick to buying in the future I think. The trouble is, eBay are fucked if enough people start thinking like me.

[dollywobbler]

I've never really used Ebay to sell stuff. I sold the CX and Land Rover that way, as I thought it was the best method for those particular cars. I listed the Scimitar as a Classified Ad because it's much, much cheaper and you get less imbeciles. I do need to find a way to sell smaller items. I've got tons of crap sitting around that I should attempt to sell online. I've got a sunvisor (plastic) for the Westminster, BX bits, a Halogen hob, lots of unwanted model cars and probably more if I actually looked. But I can't really be doing with ebay because of the fear stuff will go for sod all, the faff of posting/packaging and the cost. So stuff will just remain sitting around.

[messerschmitt owner]

Ian

 

what BX bits have you got that you no longer need?

 

Campbell

[dollywobbler]

Got some random stuff like headlamps, a driveshaft (TZD) and a few other bits and bobs. Not much. Still takes up space though!

[Cavcraft]

*Space reserved for million word epic/rant/suggestions later.

[flat4alfa]

Experiences?

 

Just can't live without it, really.

The exposure it gives puts Autotrader and E&M and all the others into the ground.

 

For selling a car, the fees are way too much but the exposure is priceless. I tend to pull cars before auction end so it's just to get a buyer standing on my doorstep with cash - it's daft send him away and to leave it to run thus pay the final value fee. Always state a BIN so the buyer knows what kind of money you are after. It's pointless starting auction low because all you get is monger questions and last-auction-minute snipers wanting it for nothing and who won't show up anyhow.

 

For selling bits and pieces, it's the best way - almost everything eventually goes. Recently, best money comes from foreign buyers. Worst money comes from British folks wanting it for free. Some of my best no-fuss experiences have been with foreign buyers, believe it or not. There have been odd mishaps but working at it is part of it, I reckon. Currently at 500+ feedback with not one neg in 8 years, which is crikey! considering the divs out there. Put the effort into packing/posting and use PayPal. It's expensive, but safer and cheaper than standing about drinking beer, kicking it about, letting it rot. Anything left just bundle together and sell as job lot - buyers seem to flock to them.

 

Christ I sound like Billy Bleach

 

Either way, it's better than going back to the bad old days of shoddily-printed classified ads in the paper running months on end, leaving your phone number open to any old telesales muppet.

[Guest]

*Space reserved for million word epic/rant/suggestions later.

 

[theorganist]

I think for a purchasing it is great. Not just parts for cars I have found rare pieces of organ music on there for example.

 

I think for owners of older and rare cars it is invaluable, I could'nt believe the amount of bits for a Renault 14 I found and the easy access to E-bay Spain etc makes it even better. I bought a name badge and a rear light lens from a seller in Spain. It would have been a very laborious excerise if e-bay didn't exist.

 

Dare I go as far as to say that the existence of e-bay may even have helped save cars from the scrapman as it certainly helps makes running them easier, in my experience at any rate?!!

 

As a seller I have only sold small items like magazines and computer games apart one car (Allegro), which went smoothly and my old Electronic Church Organ. The organ was bought by a guy living on the Isle of Harris who came down in an old LDV van to collect it. He even slept in it!!

 

So for me it has been mainly positive.

[Rocket88]

Agree with pretty much all Mr Flat4 has stated. Have bought /sold anything from 99p stuff to £5k cars, without too many dramas. You get numpties, but you get them anyway. When selling, price it correctly, word it nicely to scare off the mongs, and when buying avoid any ads written by dyslexic retards. Never bid on anything described as "stunning",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Either way, it's better than going back to the bad old days of shoddily-printed classified ads in the paper running months on end, leaving your phone number open to any old telesales muppet.

 

Or, for the general tat, car boot sales. Ugh. Having to get up at some ungodly hour, set up a wonky pasting table in a muddy field and then let items go for nothing because anything more than £1 wouldn't sell.

[Lord Sterling]

Ebay does my head in, but for some reason I'm still pretty addicted to it

 

The good thing about ebay is that can find car parts/other stuff that under normal circumstances you wouldnt be able to find. For example, I wanted a set of proper Rover floor mats for my car, I cant walk into a dealership anymore and buy a set as dealers dont exist anymore, most other so-called "Rover specialists" only cater for certain cars. On ebay, I can e-mail some breakers to see what they have got, someone will email me back with the right part and a price, If I agree the price, I pay, they send, job done.

 

You will run into numpties and mouthbreathers but you will run into them no matter what you do.

 

I dont often, if ever sell on ebay so I dont really know what the process is. Buying can be a bit of an experience itself sometimes. End of last month I bought a part for the Micra, I paid, they said they sent the item but 2 weeks later I'd received nothing, I emailed the seller, they told they sent the last week, a few more days later and still nothing, so I phoned them up and it turned out they had forgot to send the item!

[Guest]

Ebay does my head in, but for some reason I'm still pretty addicted to it.

 

This pretty much sums up my thoughts about eBay in one succint sentence.

[messerschmitt owner]

I stopped using ebay about four years ago and haven't used it since myself.

 

I used to sell lots of stuff on it - my records being £1550 for a book and £2901 for a postcard. I sold umpteen bubblecars there when thinning my collection - including one to Italy and another to Germany. My Land Rover Dormobile went that way too and is now is Switzerland. I always found it easier to do a sale outside ebay on the bird in the hand principle.

[flat4alfa]

Forgot rule #27:

 

Never bid on anything described as "MINT".

Those sellers are Mr Gumby's offspring.

If you must, visit to inspect the car - but only if it's 'bastard-rare'. If you are bitten by the rabid dog that mans the porch, stay calm. The shite is probably worth the giggle.

[maxpower]

i only use ebay for buying........ after the experience i have had with them through selling ( see grumpy thread page??) i would never use them for selling ever again.

 

partly because they have suspended my main account.... but mostly for them being feckin rip-off twats

 

fees to list item

 

fees for pics

 

fees for item being sold

 

then just as you are getting over the shock of that little lot

 

PAYPAL FEES!!!!

 

then they have the feckin cheek to ask if you would like to give all or part of what is left to some feckin charity!!

[Bren]

I think with ebay if you are dealing with "autoshite" type items you will get a reasonable result as you are more likely dealing with like minded people who know what they are looking at.

 

I would'nt like to buy or sell a modern car on there due to the divvies that you are likely to be dealing with.

 

And yes, the fees are extortionate, but sometimes you either pay them or throw the stuff in a skip.

[tonedepear]

I find now the best method for selling is to whack things up as BIN with "best offer" and pitch the buy it now price at about £200 more than I'm actually after.

 

The last 5 or 10 cars I've got rid of in this way have averaged 3 auctions of 7 days, and a couple have miraculously gone through at the actual BIN price.

 

However, usually what happens is I get a best offer in the first few hours which is close to what I want, and I thing "ooh, crikey, it must actually be worth something" so I hit them back with a counter offer of half way between their offer and the BIN, and then spend the next 6.5 days getting offers of £200 from people in fucking Mozambique and wishing I'd taken the first offer.

 

They do, however, usually sell, and I find the quality of buyers via BIN / best offer is far higher (which isn't saying much) because with BIN there's a lot less "ooh, I'll have a punt, fuggit, I'm pissed" and a lot more "I'll pay this much for that thing, *click*, yay".

 

There's also plenty of room for "I'll give you [bIN price -£100]" if you want to take it off ebay and I'll pop round with cash and save us some fees. (I never take it off without seeing some money, but there's still good room for manouvre on saving you the selling fees.

 

It's still not perfect, and I'd rather sell on a forum, but I'm only a recent discoverer of AS, so I've never owned anything anyone might want.

 

BIN is good for VALU / BARGAINZ as well. I got a gas converted Volvo V40 for £700 (which was very good money at the time) just by spending a day at work with LPG cars under £750, BIN only, and listed by most recently posted, and refreshing it every half hour or so. You're hoping for that Ex WIfe selling a new Porsche for £50 to anyone who'll pick it up before he comes from shagging some 19 yr old, but you do get instant first dibs on anything that's a bit too cheap before anyone else sees it.

 

OK, I've waffled enough. In summary Buy It Now = good.

[Pillock]

I bit the bullet and put three bits on eBay - diesel pump, injector set and cylidner head from the old Leon engine.

 

Two sold, the cylinder head did not. The selling items got one bid (£25 a pop) from the same garage in Bradford.

Surprise surprise, four days later no response. I now just have to relist, I've wasted my time and effort yet that knob-jockey gets away without a blemish.

[Cavcraft]

Selling: mixed experience from absolutely fantastic to utterly, depressingly fucking rubbish.

 

Good: Sold four or five cars with no MOT to people from London. Two got overnight buses up to here to collect and one of them (despite being told I would be up about 5.00am anyhow) went to Liverpool for an hour or two before heading back to Chester as he 'didn't want to disturb me at 6.00am'. Top bloke who didn't piss about.

Nice couple from South Wales bought my old Renner motorhome, fantastic sale, they were very happy and planned to kip overnight in Chester before heading back. Took them the other side of town to get some bedding from a shop as it was the least I could do. The radiator went on their way back apparantly so I offered to buy them a new one but they refused the offer and said they were chuffed.

 

Sold a BX sunroof visor to someone in Australia and some clocks to someone in France and loads of cars and bits therefrom sold all over England and Wales. Plenty of other happy buyers too to be fair.

 

The bad:

 

Countless dickheads who bid and within minutes of listing ended said their mum/dad/cat/hamster wouldn't let them have it but they were 'sorry. Yeah, thanks for that you twats.

 

Nissan Patrol with heavy front damage that couldn't be driven: cue begging e-mails from some bint in Iceland, can they bid on it and they'll sort out the export. Let them do so and had a complete nightmare thereafter. Gave them a quote to get it to Immingham on a recovery truck which they were fine with. 'Don't worry, the shipping company know it's coming, know it's damaged, it's all booked in, blah blah fucking blah'.

Recovery fella picks it up, the money is in my bank (via Paypal) and I'm laughing. Well, I say laughing, I laughed for about 3.2516 hours until the driver reached the docks who didn't know he was coming. Hmm. 317 'phone calls later form a very irate driver who was going to tip the fucker over the dock wall and have done with it unless I sorted it pronto. Shipping company said nothing definate booked. Dock people didn't know it was damaged. Driver gets sent to four or five different places at the docks all of whom fuck him off.

Bint from iceland goes all coy but I know she's up shit creek without a paddle so save my anger for later. Eventually (we're talking something like four hours later) the bastard is off the truck and forklifted onto the dockside. Matey boy driver then asked to put it back on his truck as they didn't know it was damaged so couldn't take it. I believe his slightly less than charitable response was to suggest they copulated away unless they fancied being shoved into the boot of the Patrol just before he nudged it into the water around them.

 

Now, Iceland bird turns up the heat and starts getting cocky so it was time to give her the full hairdryer treatment. 'Wasn't her problem' 'you'll have to sort it' 'I did all I can' etc. That's when I went completely fucking mental. Told her the recovery truck was going to invoice me another £300 as he was about to miss out on the return leg for someone else, she still wasn't arsed. Then I called the docks, explained the situation and the nice lady there told me they'd just leave it at the docks and charge the buyer all mannaer of fucking big storage fees.

Ace up sleeve I phone Ms Iceland and gave her 15 minutes to get the fucker sorted out or the driver was off, she'd have a much bigger bill to sort (I said I wouldn't release the car until she'd coughed the extra but the docks would charge her for storage on top) then reminded her that I'd had my money, Paypal don't refund on vehicle purchases and that she was right in the shit. She got a bit flappy so I said I didn't give a flying shit any more and she was going to be well and truly fucked in about 11 minutes time and that I wasn't doing anymore phoning or chasing around.

In the end the driver got some form or other signed, the lady at the docks e-mailed me a waiver of any extra fees and that was that. I hope to God the fucking thing blew up when they eventually got it the other end and they got bum raped in fees.

 

But you know what?

Even that probably didn't piss me off as much as when some penniless, timewasting little bastard wona listing for some old car I had. Bit of an e-mail exchange and phone calls, all is well. Twatty McTawatson agrees to meet me at thr railway station so off I pop with my daughter (who was about four at the time) and stodd for about 1.5-2 hours mostly in the pissing rain for this absolute wanker not to show up. I wouldn't mind but he was sending me text messages saying he'd be there soon and the train was delayed etc and didn't of course ever actually arrive.

I cannot beging to describe how much this annoyed me, I went absolutely fucking mental, found his home number and got through to his dad who couldn't apologise enough. I swear to God for weeks afterwards I was holding myself back from going to his house, kidnapping him, taking him to Delamere Forest and tying him up before going back each morning and evening to stab him with blunt rusty darts, force feed him excrement then hammering 6 inch nails through his eyes and kicking the living shit out of him. Breaking his knuckles with industrial strength pliers and hacksawing his toes off were also a considered option at the time.

If he'd survived I was going to run him home a few weeks later and spray 'don't ever fuck with me again you bastard' in six foot letters down his house walls.

I'm over it now but I still occasionally have the urge to seriously hurt him one day. Anyhow it taught me a valuable lesson more than ever: nothing is sold until the money is in your hand and also that I won't ever wait in or meet someone if the time isn't right for me.

[retrogeezer]

Used to sell loads of retro video game stuff regularly when it was a collectors trading based selling platform. Then they introduced no neg feedback for non paying sellers and then the virtually impossible to keep good scores as a small scale private seller DSR rating thing. So, haven't sold anything for 2 years now and the last thing was a petrol lawn mower.

 

Nowadays it just seems like an on-line sunday market full of mobile phone covers & batteries.

[MK5 Escort]

I’ll happily admit I’m addicted to looking at eBay for old, cheap heaps. I do take a look on there most days but have yet to buy any motors from it. Once I've even managed to find an old Transit Flareside on there for sale that I used to occasionally drive in the company I used to work for ('Flerrrdy derrrrdy' we used to call it) - five years (plus) after it was sold.

 

I've bought odd bits and pieces as spares for the Escort for next to nowt from eBay and to be fair they've all turned up on time and as described. Most of which are still sitting in the garage awaiting for the day they may come into use.

 

I have never managed to successfully sell anything on eBay. My father wanted me to sell an old camera and camcorder on there. He wasn’t bothered about reserve values, just as long as the postage/packing was covered. No bids at all, not even silly ones, after seven days... I've never been tempted to shift any motors on eBay. I've heard enough horror stories not to even consider it.

[sporty-shite]

I like ebay. But it's not what it was, or really what it should be.

 

Now, ebay is just a field full of dropshippers, wholesalers and far eastern counterfeiters. Which is all well and good if yoiu want to buy some cheap shit, but not really great for selling that old chod that's clutterting up your loft/shed/garage/Celica boot.

 

Because of this private-seller-hoplessness, I was forced to go and "check out" a car boot sale with Mrs Sporty, as we have lots of stuff to get rid of that just isn't worth the ebay hassle. This made me grumpy.

 

As far as selling cars goes, it's carandclassic.co.uk for chod, and auto trader for moderns. Last pain free sales in each category have been from these.

 

However, there is hardly a day passes where I don't have a quick look.

[fiatdaft]

I buy and sell car stuff on ebay most of the problems have been with the immigrant population,i try not to post abroad due to the costs but he buyers have been fine, i have had more problems with buyers on a certain retro forum tbh.

[autofive]

ebay buying: addictive and wallet destroying - but i love it

 

ebay selling: a couple fo years ago it was the best way, now its crap and ebay make you jump through hoops just to sell the regulation 10 items a month, then screw you for massive fees, then give the buyer's money back if there is the slightest whiff of a complaint

 

this year i was hoping to do a few autojumbles to get rid of my accumulated autotat, but (so far) ive been too skint to buy a van

 

any objections to me selling autospares via this forum? (now pog has left, as he obviously didnt like the motoring books for sale thread, as he requested some and still hasnt paid for 'em)

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Do you HAVE TO accept paypal when selling on e-bay?

[autofive]

yes

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

hmm, given ebay's market share, I wonder whether that's something for the competition commission to look into!

 

Edited to add: I've had a nosey, and it seems that you have to accept an 'online payment method', the options for which include moneybookers, which is good enough for me...hmm wonder whether I should waste my time trying to sell some old crap there.

[TimothyClaypole]

I REALLY REALLY don't understand why someone doesn't step up and put their money up and give them the kicking they deserve.

 

All this Dragon's Den malarky, they are just small time wannabe's taking the profits from mugs giving them it on a plate, lets see them club together and setup a rival to Ebay.

 

The DSR ratings are just that last kick to the balls as a seller.

 

I'm paying them around 15% in total to sell so that's money I'm paying them yet I'm expected to getting 5 stars ratings from idiots who only buy on Ebay so don't understand that putting 1 star because you didn't get the

item to them within 1 hour of an auction ending results in your future listings being dumped on the last page of any searches and eventually suspension of your account etc.

 

So I'm paying for a service but getting rated on something you have no control over...

 

 

They made it quite clear a while ago that they no longer wanted the odds and sods sellers. They had visions of becoming an Amazon look alike.

So all the improvements they've made (their wording) were nothing more than increasingly stupid things to piss off more and more sellers.

They want businesses and drop shippers who list in the thousands of items.

 

I did laugh when their head boss was on the news last year crying their profits were down - no shit sherlock, guess who's to blame for that.

 

 

Yet I'll still sell and buy there despite all the shit as it's the biggest market place there is and they know it.

 

I remember selling computer stuff in Micro Mart and what a slow ass process that was waiting for cheques etc.

[RedSparrow]

There is ebid http://uk.ebid.net/, but it doesn't seem to have been very popular. I kind of hope it blows ebay out of the water though. I doubt it, however.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Ricardo is super-successful in Switzerland...According to wiki, they (TRADUS) have operations in a number of countries. Does anyone know whether any of them is critical-mass-worthy? I guess that this is the only credible way to attack ebay, outside of someone like Google deciding to invest a fortune in going after them.