I've spent probably far too much of my time over the years following vehicle auctions on ebay, (occasionally buying), and also watch classics auctions / review hammer prices with interest. I will confess to being a big fan of ebay. I think a lot will depend on the vehicle and its value. If it was a specialised / rare vehicle with potentially higher value I'd prefer to see it with a reputable major auctioneer.
Pros:-
As you've already indicated with ebay it has huge potential coverage. I think the other real pro with ebay is that if the car doesn't sell it isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg whereas if it's a physical auction venue you have to get the car there which may involve travelling some distance or use of transporter. They will charge you for including your car whether it sells or not, this could be a few hundred pounds, and they often take a percentage out of the hammer price, (sometimes the buyer pays this), whereas ebay has a reasonable cap on what they charge.
Con's -
At a genuine physical auction you'd usually have to register to bid and produce proof of ID in order to register, on ebay conversely you're usually dealing with a faceless nameless individual which is a licence to be a pillock for anyone inclined to muck you about. Genuine interested buyers would find a way to contact you through ebay beforehand to hopefully demonstrate their genuineness and hopefully arrange to view the car before deciding if they want to bid on it. I understand that there are a lot of dreamers & pratts out there and vendors have found themselves having to repeatedly re-list their vehicles due to non-payment. I have had similar with non-vehicle auctions on ebay. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who ask all sorts of inane questions, (on occasion I might have been one of them), if you include a sufficiently detailed description this will lessen the need for potential bidders to have to ask you anything.
If you decide to use ebay and want to maximise the price your vehicle realises there are some commonsense things to do and some safeguards:
Description. You can go 2 ways with this, either give the bare minimum of factual information, (make, model, year, mileage, colour, etc.) or provide a highly detailed panel-by-panel description, the most important thing is only to provide factual information and not make claims based on personal opinion. Your idea of 'concours condition' might be at odds with someone else's idea whereas 'concours winner' is indisputable. If you misdescribe, (which may be based upon opinion), you're giving the winning bidder a reason to walk away and wasting your own time.
Photo Portfolio. There's the old adage, a photo says a thousand words, and it's true. There is so much detail to be gleaned from good photos that good pictures will better inform potential bidders than any description. Ideally try to get good quality high definition photos of the car from every angle inside and out, including engine bay detail. Valet the car to best effect before hand and take the photos in a well lit environment or with a pleasant backdrop which insinuates class and elegance such as a stately home. I'd hold up RetroRides member
KGF1 as an exemplar in this respect, I'd dare you to look at something as bland as a Fiesta and not desire it because it's so well presented and comprehensively photographed, e.g.
forum.retro-rides.org/thread/202813/delivery-mileage-ford-fiesta-ghiaIf you want a masterclass in advertising vehicles to best effect and selling at best price you could do worse than to read a few of his ads on here.
The worst thing to do is to include no photos, next to this is just to have one or 2 very poor quality low-definition photos taken on a cheap mobile phone and incompetently uploaded, (e.g. foggy upside down cars).
Listing Details. Make sure you tick all the boxes and get them right. People will often search using filters and will filter on mileage, type of transmission, number of doors, etc. when they search and this could mean they don't get to see your car if you've erroneously listed it, for example, as a lhd when it's actually rhd. At the extreme I've seen vendors listing the car as wrong make and model. I've stumbled across cars mis-listed in entirely wrong sections of the ebay site which would be missed by people searching only the correct section.
Price & Reserve. You need to research the price before listing to get a realistic idea of what it might be worth, this is more difficult with rarer vehicles. Set a sensible reserve so that it doesn't get stolen on a low winning bid. This applies equally to real auctions, I've seen some fantastic cars listed with
H&H Auctions being sold for a fraction of their market value because they've been sent to auction with no reserve and someone has got lucky.
Contact Before Bidding. Some vendors will specify that you have to contact them before bidding or your bids will be removed, this would be to get details of the potential bidders, particularly name, address & landline. I understand you are able to block nuisance bidders somehow, (which could include someone who is bidding without having contacted you first).
Buy It Now price. Aside from the auction you can list it with a 'BIN', usually at the higher end of what the vehicle is likely to be worth. Genuinely keen potential bidders obviously have to weigh up whether they might lose the car in the closing moments of the auction and so whether they should try for a bargain and risk losing it or just bite the bullet and click to buy it now.
Viewing / Test. Invite viewings and, if possible, test drives. If the car's a good 'un, you'll want potential bidders to reassure themselves that it is, this also serves to whet the appetite. You need to consider insurance implications and check that anyone testing the car holds a licence, etc.
Exposure. The longer the auction, the more people will see it. You can promote it elsewhere, (like here), with links to your ebay auction. I would always try to set up an auction to finish at around 8 or 9pm on a Sunday, potential bidders are more likely to be at home and available to follow the end of the auction. If they've bid and previously set a highest bid they might get carried away towards the end of the auction and increase their high bid, (if I'm ever bidding on anything I never place a bid until 2 or 3 seconds before the auction closes). I have seen cars on as 10 day auction listings going from £170 to £4K in the last 2 minutes of the auction.
A lot of the above are 'add-ons' which will cost you an extra few ££'s as you tick the boxes.
If it's a good car it'll sell itself, the more help you give it the better the price you're likely to realise.
inside, the painwork was more patched than a chain smoker and the whole car looked ragged! Many people I know of the day including some people here felt it was a £4k car tops. Oh, and it had zero service history/paperwork again.
