Right, I'm soon to sell a couple of cars on ebay, and was wondering what
people's opinions are as to the best time of the week for the auction to
finish.

I'm thinking either early Saturday afternoon, or mid to late Sunday
afternoon/evening?

What do people reckon?

PING Oliver Keating - you've got good prices for a fair few cars in the past
on ebay - what's your opinion?

Peter

AstraVanMan wrote:
Right, I'm soon to sell a couple of cars on ebay, and was wondering
what people's opinions are as to the best time of the week for the
auction to finish.

You want to try and cause a last minute bidding frenzy where people will
bid over the odds - I find a very good method is to start at a very low
start
(a pound?), and run for the full ten days, ending at the busiest times of
the
week - which is NOT saturday!

Early evening (8-10pm) on a Thursday and Friday seem to be busiest times for
UK only auction. But ideally you want the auction to run
across two weekends to allow people to view, so 9 o'clock Sunday Night is
probably
best. - This means starting your auction 9pm Thursday night

Saturday afternoon - not so sure. You're competing with sports, shopping,
and all
the other domestic stuff you don't get the rest of the week, plus, you only
get one
weekend to arrange viewing.

Buy It Now prices, and Reserve auctions seem to put people off. If you start
a car
at a quid, you'll get lots of interest early on from people chasing a
bargain. Serious
buyers may bid as well. After watching the auction for 10 days, they're
likely to
bid higher because there is a sense that they will have wasted all that time
if they
don't win.

Just my 10p worth. I've never sold a car on ebay. I've sold a lot of other
stuff tho,
and bought a couple of cars.

YMMV and stuff...

--
Big Egg
Hack to size. Bash to fit. Weld to join. Grind to shape. Paint to cover.
My name is not "news". If you reply to that address, I won't get it

Right, I'm soon to sell a couple of cars on ebay, and was wondering
what people's opinions are as to the best time of the week for the
auction to finish.

You want to try and cause a last minute bidding frenzy where people will
bid over the odds - I find a very good method is to start at a very low
start
(a pound?), and run for the full ten days, ending at the busiest times of
the
week - which is NOT saturday!

Early evening (8-10pm) on a Thursday and Friday seem to be busiest times
for
UK only auction. But ideally you want the auction to run
across two weekends to allow people to view, so 9 o'clock Sunday Night is
probably
best. - This means starting your auction 9pm Thursday night

Both good points - both have their pros and cons I suppose - if it finished
on a Thursday/Friday then I could make arrangements for it to be collected
at the weekend, whereas if it finished on the Sunday it could be another
week before it's collected, but there is the advantage that it's running
across two weekends, like you say.

Saturday afternoon - not so sure. You're competing with sports, shopping,
and all
the other domestic stuff you don't get the rest of the week, plus, you
only get one
weekend to arrange viewing.

Good point.

Buy It Now prices, and Reserve auctions seem to put people off. If you
start a car
at a quid, you'll get lots of interest early on from people chasing a
bargain. Serious
buyers may bid as well. After watching the auction for 10 days, they're
likely to
bid higher because there is a sense that they will have wasted all that
time if they
don't win.

What I was thinking of doing is setting a low reserve (something around
£300, which it will easily reach) and a buy it now of £1200 (cue ****-taking
now!), with the only point of the reserve being that people have a few days
to decide whether to use buy it now, other than either messing around with a
high reserve, or a buy it now without a reserve that disappears as soon as a
bid is placed. Maybe not - all stuff like this does just tend to put people
off to some extent or another.

Just my 10p worth. I've never sold a car on ebay. I've sold a lot of other
stuff tho,
and bought a couple of cars.

YMMV and stuff...

Cheers for all that.

Peter

"AstraVanMan" wrote in message
...
Right, I'm soon to sell a couple of cars on ebay, and was wondering what
people's opinions are as to the best time of the week for the auction to
finish.

I'm thinking either early Saturday afternoon, or mid to late Sunday
afternoon/evening?

What do people reckon?

PING Oliver Keating - you've got good prices for a fair few cars in the
past
on ebay - what's your opinion?

The traditional advice is to start the auction on Thursday at about 20:15,
run for 10 days and finish on Sunday evening at about 20:15, as Sunday
evening is usually the peak browsing time for ebay. You don't want it to end
too early or otherwise people might miss it, and end it too late and people
will have gone to bed etc. so they won't try and fight off "snipers" - this
can in itself drive the price up in the last few minutes.

And £1 no reserve is the way to go.

If you start the auction at the price you want, then you have either
over-estimated it (and it just won't sell), or people will be unwilling to
pay much more than what they think you think its worth.

If you set a reserve, bidding won't be as frantic as people will know that
there isn't a real bargain to be had. If you set the reserve too high people
won't bid to it, set it too low, and again people are weary about bidding
much higher than what they think *you* think its worth.

I am sure that e-bay motors is by far a sufficiently large market that £1
no reserve is safe

Oh and another thing - reject all "buy it now" people. They are after a
bargain.

Peter

"bigegg" wrote in message
...
AstraVanMan wrote:


Early evening (8-10pm) on a Thursday and Friday seem to be busiest times
for
UK only auction. But ideally you want the auction to run
across two weekends to allow people to view, so 9 o'clock Sunday Night is
probably
best. - This means starting your auction 9pm Thursday night

Entirely agreed. Interestingly I have a book which has collected some data
on this and found the optimum time to be 8:15pm on Sunday night!

But the 2 weekends issue is important as you do get some bids from the first
weekend.

Saturday afternoon - not so sure. You're competing with sports, shopping,
and all
the other domestic stuff you don't get the rest of the week, plus, you
only
get one
weekend to arrange viewing.

Interestingly no-one came to view the cars before bidding/buying. If you
supply it with a brand new MOT then that is usually enough. Quite a lot of
people don't really know enough about cars to know what to look for anyway.

Buy It Now prices, and Reserve auctions seem to put people off. If you
start
a car
at a quid, you'll get lots of interest early on from people chasing a
bargain. Serious
buyers may bid as well. After watching the auction for 10 days, they're
likely to
bid higher because there is a sense that they will have wasted all that
time
if they
don't win.

All very true.

I started the Merc off at £1, and on the first day of frantic bidding (just
4 and a half hours) it had hit £8k (which has to be some sort of record!).
It finished off at £14.5k

Other people were trying to sell Merc SLs with buy-it-nows of lower prices,
and not getting anywhere.

Just my 10p worth. I've never sold a car on ebay. I've sold a lot of other
stuff tho,
and bought a couple of cars.

YMMV and stuff...

--
Big Egg
Hack to size. Bash to fit. Weld to join. Grind to shape. Paint to cover.
My name is not "news". If you reply to that address, I won't get it

The traditional advice is to start the auction on Thursday at about 20:15,
run for 10 days and finish on Sunday evening at about 20:15, as Sunday
evening is usually the peak browsing time for ebay. You don't want it to
end
too early or otherwise people might miss it, and end it too late and
people
will have gone to bed etc. so they won't try and fight off "snipers" -
this
can in itself drive the price up in the last few minutes.

Indeed. A while back (you may or may not remember) I put a pair of Porsche
924 Turbos on ebay for a friend - neither had MOT or any history, one was a
runner (and had a half-fitted wide arch bodykit, and a full 5" stainless
exhaust) and the other was a bare shell with a supposed low mileage engine
(it did look *very* clean, all new gaskets etc, but no proof that it was a
genuine low miler). One guy asked for some specific details (chassis/engine
numbers), which I was originally slightly suspicious of, but it was
basically to determine the exact spec of the cars, and I only got the
information together in the last hour or so of the auction, but doing so
pushed the price up by about £200 in the last 5 minutes!!!! They went for
£650, and they only cost my mate £150 (+£40 to get the shell taken home).

And £1 no reserve is the way to go.

If you start the auction at the price you want, then you have either
over-estimated it (and it just won't sell), or people will be unwilling to
pay much more than what they think you think its worth.

If you set a reserve, bidding won't be as frantic as people will know that
there isn't a real bargain to be had. If you set the reserve too high
people
won't bid to it, set it too low, and again people are weary about bidding
much higher than what they think *you* think its worth.

I entirely see your point, but what's your view of me setting a low reserve
(say £300, which I know it will *easily* go above), and a buy it now price
of, say, £1000, just so if do people want to use the buy it now option they'
ll have a few days to do so (though maybe not) before the option disappears
??? I'm just thinking that I'd quite like to give people the option, and I
put the buy it now option along with a no reserve auction it'd disappear as
soon as a bid was placed (i.e. £1). I suppose a £1 N/R auction would, like
you say, be by far the most attractive way as far as potential buyers would
be concerned.

I am sure that e-bay motors is by far a sufficiently large market that £1
no reserve is safe

Oh and another thing - reject all "buy it now" people. They are after a
bargain.

By "buy it now" I take it you mean people sending offers by email (or asking
"how much to buy now?") as opposed to people using the proper "Buy it Now"
method?

Cheers for the advice Oliver and bigegg - looks like 8:15pm Thursday it is.

Peter

In article ,
AstraVanMan wrote:
What I was thinking of doing is setting a low reserve (something around
£300, which it will easily reach) and a buy it now of £1200 (cue
****-taking now!), with the only point of the reserve being that people
have a few days to decide whether to use buy it now, other than either
messing around with a high reserve, or a buy it now without a reserve
that disappears as soon as a bid is placed. Maybe not - all stuff like
this does just tend to put people off to some extent or another.

I use ebay a fair bit mainly for buying. And things with a reserve or
'buy it now' price put me off - both are against the spirit of an auction.
Perhaps if something was unique, and I desperately wanted it, I'd bid, but
this doesn't apply to most cars etc.

Of all the various stuff I've sold without reserve, only one thing failed
to make a price I was happy with, and that was a near unused but several
years old hover mower which only got 6 quid. And I'd underestimated the
postage costs. But I got positively *glowing* feedback from the buyer. ;-)

--
*I'm really easy to get along with once people learn to worship me

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn

Of all the various stuff I've sold without reserve, only one thing failed
to make a price I was happy with, and that was a near unused but several
years old hover mower which only got 6 quid. And I'd underestimated the
postage costs. But I got positively *glowing* feedback from the buyer. ;-)

A while back I sold about 76 betamax tapes (all with stuff on, but mostly
films that had probably only been watched once) - I put them on with £1 no
reserve and they fetched £5.50. Looking at other batches of blank betamax
tapes (of which there were very few) most had a start price of at least a
tenner, and I reckon even with a start price of £15 or even £20 I could have
sold them (they've got to be about £4 each new, so £20 for the lot is still
a real bargain). I was a bit gutted, and it was barely worth the effort,
but that's life I suppose.

And point taken about buy it now - it does kinda take the spirit away from
the auction, and even though it is in pretty good nick, a 2 litre CDX
Carlton Estate is nothing desperately unique or desirable.

Peter

"AstraVanMan" wrote in message
...
The traditional advice is to start the auction on Thursday at about
20:15,
run for 10 days and finish on Sunday evening at about 20:15, as Sunday
evening is usually the peak browsing time for ebay. You don't want it to
end
too early or otherwise people might miss it, and end it too late and
people
will have gone to bed etc. so they won't try and fight off "snipers" -
this
can in itself drive the price up in the last few minutes.

Indeed. A while back (you may or may not remember) I put a pair of
Porsche
924 Turbos on ebay for a friend - neither had MOT or any history, one was
a
runner (and had a half-fitted wide arch bodykit, and a full 5" stainless
exhaust) and the other was a bare shell with a supposed low mileage engine
(it did look *very* clean, all new gaskets etc, but no proof that it was a
genuine low miler). One guy asked for some specific details
(chassis/engine
numbers), which I was originally slightly suspicious of, but it was
basically to determine the exact spec of the cars, and I only got the
information together in the last hour or so of the auction, but doing so
pushed the price up by about £200 in the last 5 minutes!!!! They went for
£650, and they only cost my mate £150 (+£40 to get the shell taken home).

And £1 no reserve is the way to go.

If you start the auction at the price you want, then you have either
over-estimated it (and it just won't sell), or people will be unwilling
to
pay much more than what they think you think its worth.

If you set a reserve, bidding won't be as frantic as people will know
that
there isn't a real bargain to be had. If you set the reserve too high
people
won't bid to it, set it too low, and again people are weary about
bidding
much higher than what they think *you* think its worth.

I entirely see your point, but what's your view of me setting a low
reserve
(say £300, which I know it will *easily* go above), and a buy it now price
of, say, £1000, just so if do people want to use the buy it now option
they'
ll have a few days to do so (though maybe not) before the option
disappears
??? I'm just thinking that I'd quite like to give people the option, and
I
put the buy it now option along with a no reserve auction it'd disappear
as
soon as a bid was placed (i.e. £1). I suppose a £1 N/R auction would,
like
you say, be by far the most attractive way as far as potential buyers
would
be concerned.

You have to remember that the only time when people are likely to consider
doing a buy it now are if:

1) For some reason they want it straight away (this can work with computer
components like hard disks)
2) They think that the buy-it-now price is lower than what the final auction
price will be.

Option 1) is unlikely with cars, most people can wait a few days for a car.
Option 2) means that it won't be in your interest to do so.

The problem with reserve prices is that before the reserve is met, bidding
is damped because people don't really think there is an amazing bargain.
Remebmer with the Merc, when it started people really could bid £1 and be
the high bidder!

After the reserve is met, bidding is dampened because buyers aren't sure
about bidding high amounts on something that the seller doesn't really think
is worth that much (which is how most people read reserve prices).

I mean, you don't really want to hint (with reserves or start prices) at how
much you think its worth, because if you over-value it, people will simply
ignore the auction, if you under-value it then people will be concerned as
to why you don't think its worth very much. A £300 reserve could be dodgy in
this respect.

I am sure that e-bay motors is by far a sufficiently large market that
£1
no reserve is safe

Oh and another thing - reject all "buy it now" people. They are after a
bargain.

By "buy it now" I take it you mean people sending offers by email (or
asking
"how much to buy now?") as opposed to people using the proper "Buy it Now"
method?

Yes exactly. Hardly anyone uses the "Buy it Now" button, except for small
value items (£10). People will e-mail you with offers which are frankly
insulting.

I was selling a computers on e-bay, one of them I started at £65. Now I know
most computers sell for around £140-£150.

Anyway someone asked me for a "buy-it-now", so I told them they could have
it for £150. They then told me know they were thinking more like £75, so I
decided there was no point continueing. I let the auction complete and it
fnished at £145

Just beware of the "buy-it-now" brigade

Cheers for the advice Oliver and bigegg - looks like 8:15pm Thursday it
is.

Peter

In article ,
AstraVanMan wrote:
A while back I sold about 76 betamax tapes (all with stuff on, but
mostly films that had probably only been watched once) - I put them on
with £1 no reserve and they fetched £5.50. Looking at other batches of
blank betamax tapes (of which there were very few) most had a start
price of at least a tenner, and I reckon even with a start price of £15
or even £20 I could have sold them (they've got to be about £4 each new,
so £20 for the lot is still a real bargain). I was a bit gutted, and it
was barely worth the effort, but that's life I suppose.

I buy a fair bit of electronic components. And 10 of something will often
fetch more than 100 or 1000. You should have sold then in batches of 10,
and I'll bet they'd have made decent money.

--
*(over a sketch of the titanic) "The boat sank - get over it

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn