Ebay Motors alternative?
 

Is there any site out there that is similar to Ebay Motors but has lower fees?

If YOU don't know about it, how will prospective buyers?

The fees aren't that much, suck it up. Most likely, you'll sell it for more on eBay if it is something worth seeking out.

Craigs List. Just got the email from Fleabay that they are changing Ebay Motors AGAIN, so have about had it with their "new and upgraded crap" and bowing out of it.

You write "YOU" like I'm the defacto expert...hardly at all. And I wasn't complaining about the fees...merely doing some market research.

Thanks Joe....how are they changing again?

I didn't mean it personally.

What are you trying to sell?

That's cool...

Not trying to sell anything. Just trying to size up the potential competition.
I know gomotorbids.com is pretty big into collectibles but I haven't seen any other auction-style sites for cars, parts, etc.

AutoTrader seems to get some good stuff periodically.

When will they just pull out the gun and put it against the temple? I've lived through a lot of things, but I'd love to see the world again w/o ebay.

Nope, sorry. You can't buy/sell guns on ebay either.

Scary part is I actually remember when you could (I did). I've been using them since the mid-1990s. God, they were a lot better back then...

I tried to sell some stuff on ebay last month. Because of the outrageous fees, I'm kind of glad that there were no winning bidders.

What is it that you really dislike about Ebay?

I've bought and sold around 20 cars in the past year (don't ask, long story!).

Sure learned a lot about marketing and car sales during that time.

Some surprises:

1. AutoTrader, the biggest by far source for buying and selling BMWs, Porsches, etc. during my youth, seems dead. I advertised many of the 20 cars on ATrader, I don't think I sold a single one through them. Big surprise to me.

2. eBay: I did ok with ebay. In my opinion, it works pretty well for cars that have something a little unique about them. Even something like an 80s 911, any older semi-classic car, etc. does pretty good with the national exposure of eBay. I sold a couple of Porsches, a 30 year old BMW, a stick shift Mercedes sedan, and a couple of others on eBay. They recently changed the fee structure, overall it's a little more expensive, esp. if the car sells.

3. Craigslist: The BIG surprise! I sold most of the cars through Craigslist. At this time, it works really, really well for your typical, late model car. A LOT of people search Craigslist, way more than I thought. Also, if you take some decent pictures, and string a few sentences together in semi-coherent English, you have a HUGE advantage over most of the sellers. For cars, the big franchise dealerships and big independent dealers do not seem to have figured out Craiglist, or take it very seriously. It is a very fluid market, though. There is a good deal of fraud and some shady characters on Clist. I have a feeling it will continue to change and evolve, and the Clist of 5 years from now will probably look very different than the one today.

My biggest complaint about craigslist is (at least in my experience) you get an endless parade of clowns, lowballers, tire-kickers and time-wasters. I had no less than three different people call me, schedule a time to meet and then just flat-out no-show me. That kind of stuff is just rude, inconsiderate and annoying.

My ads always list a price and say "FIRM - NO TRADES". This doesn't stop a bunch of goobers from trying to get me into trades or calling up and saying "uh, yeah I know you're asking for $5,000 but will you take $2,000?"

Too many dipschits on CL - just in my experiences. Nightmare. I just sold a car on ebay with no fuss, no muss. Listed it, clear description, bang. Done. Guy picked it up yesterday. You still get a lot of stupid questions on ebay but you can ignore them easier and weed out the schlubs. Best part is you don't waste a lot of your time "showing" the car to people that really have no intention of buying it and just want to jerk you around.

Pelican here isn't too bad either. The classifieds.

Of course, some folks find doing that to be the height of hilarity.

Anyhoo, oddly, for the first 9 months or so, I got almost all really high quality buyers showing up. Amazingly, during those 9 months, I had not one single no show. (I would always tell them on the phone, I don't care if you don't show up, no problem at all, just please call and let me know).

No real clowns, a few lowballers and time wasters, but you are always going to get some of those.

But in the last couple of months (Feb/March) the quality of Clist callers did seem to take a dive. I got several no shows, tire kickers, lowballers, etc. Way more in those last 2 months than the other 9 combined.

I do think clist, and the entire industry, will change quite a bit in the next few years. Clist, for example, is a pretty unorganized way to list and search cars, for most people. Unless you can HTML or have some other program (most don't), it is very limited with pictures.

Used car sales will be internet driven, probably for forever, but the methods and sources are sure to change over the years.