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EBay info/advice needed

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Dear fellow Datsun owners,


EBay info/advice needed regarding buying and selling a car.


In order to afford completing the restoration of my 1973 610 wagon, I will be selling my other car (the car is a 1978 Fiat 124, not a Datsun). I have no experience or knowledge about selling a car on EBay.


What should I know about selling a car on EBay?

            -Is selling on auction with a reserve the best way to sell?

-What should I put into my listing?

            -What are the most important things I must make sure I do to safe guard myself?

- What do buyers look for when they look through EBay Motors ads? Of course price, but what other factors are important? What are the major concerns of buyers and how do I address them?


ANY advice you can give me would be helpful. Thank you to all who are able to reply to this.


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eBay will take quite a chunk of change, as will Paypal, if you plan on accepting it.


And the trouble with selling on eBay in auction form, is if there are 10 people wanting to bid on your car, and they all wait for the last minute to bid, thinking they will get it cheap, there is no auto extension for the others to raise the price, like there would be in a real auction format, like what Yahoo-Japan, or Gun Broker auctions.

So by all means, have a reserve, or just use the fixed price, Buy-it-Now format, maybe with the Make an Offer option.


Keep in mind, not everyone goes to eBay daily, weekly, or even monthly, so it may take a little time to find that one person that wants your item bad enough to pay what it's worth.


I have made a lot of money just scarfing up items that were poorly listed, and then re-selling them.

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I personally like Buy-It-Now with Best Offers for these cars. Reserve auctions always beg the question: what's your reserve? That defeats the purpose of a hidden reserve... Besides, how do they know that your reserve is even reasonable and worth their effort?

With a simple listing price, you can declare what area of the market you're positioning yourself in, and the buyers can make the offers that may come close enough to your price to work out a deal.


Which leads to my 2nd point.



Always start your Buy-it-Now price about 15-25% higher than what you'd take. EVERYONE wants a deal, and EVERYONE is going to haggle with you on the asking price. This protects you and lets you negotiate down to the price you were willing to take in the first place. And if some rich guy falls in love with your car and hits the Buy-It-Now with no negotiation? You just made an extra 15-25% profit!



You'll want to set up your listing with the appropriate year make and model through eBay's listing tool. They've made the listing process for cars more confusing over the past 10 years, so playing around with the simple vs advanced listing options is worth the effort. Buyers may search with the search bar, or they may search with the categories and sub-categories. Getting the proper eBay listing settings can really help get all those lookers.



The more information you put in the description, the less emails you'll get with questions, the more confidence the buyers will have with you, and the more accurate their buying decision will be. The same goes for photos. The best approach to photos is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Simply put, take photos that would help you make an informed decision on buying a car. eBay gives you 12 pics for free, but if you want more than that, you can use the HTML Editor when doing your description and use HTML links from Photobucket to put UNLIMITED photos in the description area. I average between 45-85 pics when I list cars for sale, but that's just me. :)



If you do choose to go with the Reserve Auction route, make sure you choose your ending time carefully. We are entering into Lent, so ending it at 7PM on a Wednesday night means church-goers won't be around to bid on it. Same goes for having it end at 2am in the morning, you may be up, but most buyers won't be...



If you need more personal help setting up your auction send me a PM and I can walk you through some of eBay's systems. I've been selling cars on eBay for over 10 years now, and I'm also a Certified Classic Car Appraiser as well, so I can help you arrive at a good valuation of your Fiat. No charge, just helping out a fellow Rat!


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