How to sell a car on eBay for fun and profit

Good advice alistairk and although much of it is obvious it is unbelieveable how many appalling adverts I see everyday. I like to keep ads factual, waffle free and well laid out. I get so bored wading through lines and lines of cobblers reading about needing money for their girlfriends cat when I just want to know when the MOT expires.

My Ebay Ads always start and are laid out like this, with the most important information about the car -



No text speak or motor trade jargon. I also listed good selling points i.e. CD Player (this could be important to someone). If the car has had just one owner I would also list that, however if it had 7 I'd probably leave it out!

After this I would then write a brief discription (not aligned centre anymore) in simple language, listing good points and bad points hiding nothing about the car and making sure not to waffle. Leave plenty of paragraphs so to encourage people to read the information in manageable chunks.

I will always give my mobile number (I once sold a car half hour after starting the ad thanks to this) and never hide the registration number. Encourage viewings in the ad, even if its difficult for you to be free, as this shows you are open honest and wish not to mislead.

As said by alistairk photos are so so important. First of all have some. If you don't have photos don't bother with the ad. Secondly, clean the car. Thirdly, make sure you can get the whole car in the photo. If you can't be arsed to pull the car out the garage and just photo the nose, don't be suprised if no one bids. I always show 4 full car shots (one from each corner of the car), plus one of the interior through the open drivers door and one of the interior taken through the back door. I also include the boot and a photo showing any stamped service book, service bills and MOTS. Take a few of each and you can pick the best ones.

The vehicle surroundings make a huge difference too. We can't all drive to beauty spots to take the photos but we can at least take 5 minutes to tidy our front garden before the shots are taken. I'd think twice about viewing a car surrounded by broken kids toys, a staff terrier and a chav smoking a bifta in the background.

Choose your favourite picture (one of the exterior) and use this as your headline photo as the best to draw attention to your ad.


I can't be arsed to write any more,
Happy Selling ;D

got a grand on it now. 4 days left...

Ok guys, here's proof of the benefits of "The System":

I followed it to the letter, except for making it finish on a Sunday as I really did need to get rid.

I got (at it's peak) 225 watchers and numerous emails from Merc 123 enthusiasts complimenting the car and pointing out unusual features / a couple of rare options that were good minor selling points that I either didn't know or had forgotten to include. They were in a position to do this because I'd put 12 very high resolution photos on the auction itself and put these plus another 30 of the car on a Photobucket.com account (including that of it's sills / A panels / rear archers / other common rot spots for the model). Of course I made sure I published all of these on the auction - Anything that shows people there's a lot of interest has to work in your favour when it comes to the "follow the herd" mentality that human nature is prone to; this I believe also helped to persuade the serious bidders to up their max bid price to ensure they got it!

Anyway, my "bottom line price" was £1500, my "reasonable price range" that I thought should be achievable was £1700-2200, however as you can see I actually got £2950!

What's more important, the winning bidder contacted me well within the hour from the end of the auction as politely requested in the item description (in bold red at the bottom), paid the deposit as instructed and as I type this the full balance is on it's way into my bank.

The chap is using Shiply.com to transport it: if you don't know what this is check it out, it's a site that puts people who want things (such as cars) transported in touch with transport professionals with an empty trailer on a return route to bid for the job - If you've just bought a car, enter the pickup and delivery address details, give it a day or two for the bids to roll in and pick the best!

As an added bonus, I earnt a pound for advertising Shiply on my auction AND it's strongly in your interest anyway, because the winning bidder won't be collecting the car in person, hence they can't start finding a small scratch that "wasn't described properly" and start haggling the bid price down.

Conclusion? Although I was doing a lot of it anyway, the system is now THE only way I'll ever be selling cars on Ebay!

no stupid prices mint mk1 4d00rs go for 5 grand in classic car arhtions

Excellent use of the language and spelling

I don't think there is anything you can claim off him in the small claims court. Your losses are your listing fee and final value fee. At least one of which you can get refunded through eBay and the other would probably be considered fair losses for anyone advertising a car.

Try contacting the second highest bidder? Explain your #1 bidder flaked on you.

One thing that this thread needs is for an easy explanation of how to post your photos in the description of the auction itself, therefore you're not restricted to the 12 pictures that Ebay lets you use - Can anyone explain how to do this as I'm going to be listing 3 cars soon to turn a profit where possible and would really appreciate some guidance on this so I don't have to use a link to photobucket?

When I get some time, I shall see to this . However, it will take some time for me to write post explaining effectively how to go about it. Others might be more efficient and effect in their descriptions though.

It is pretty much as Monty said though. There is more to it, but basic HTML is not *that* complex once you get your head around it.