Selling a car on ebay. Learn me.

Since craigslist sucks, I'm looking at branching out to sell the 64. I was thinking about trying ebay.

How's this work? How will it screw me?

Any better places to sell a 15k 64 el Camino?

Have you thought about Auto Trader or Auto Trader Classic? Ebay can be a mixed bag.

I've sold three Little British cars on ebay. 71 MGB, bought for $3.2k, sold for $7.2k. '57 MGA: bought for $10k, sold for $20k. '64 MGB: bought for $5k, sold for $10.5k. I held each car for 1 - 2 years.

I went all ocd: polishing the car, choosing a scenic location for the pics, bought a good digital SLR camera so I could get great pics. Then I wrote the sort of description that would make me want the car if I was on ebay.

I wish I had a warehouse full of British cars and a couple of high school kids to help out. I could give up my regular job.

If you're willing to put in the time (it's a lot of time) making the car look fantastic in photos, it can be a great place to sell a special interest car. If not, I'd just do CL + take it to Cars & Coffee with a for sale sign.

Pictures, pictures, pictures. Take pictures of the pictures if you can. I sold my mom's RV last year on eBay. Took me 2 hours just to do the ad and she had all the pictures ready. But we got 3g more than she wanted. Also make sure you answer any and all questions quickly. Do you have 100 plus feedback?

I forgot don't use eBay to load the pictures. Host them off site and then put them into the body of your ad. That way they're as big as possible.

I think ebay is the right place to sell a '64 El Camino.
What you will be paying for and what you will be getting is national exposure and national attention.

Don't be discouraged if it does not sell right away. The questions that you get can initiate dialog between you and a buyer. In the past, I always recommended the auction option and taking the longest amount of days possible. Put on it a crazy high reserve. So high that you go into it expecting that it will not sell. After that "non-sale" some bidders may continue to contact you and negotiate (or find time to come and look at the car.)
Once that cools down (but not too cool) then relist the car for another 10 days, lowering the reserve. Repeat as needed.

Of course, now Ebay offers the Classified option but I still like the deadlines that an auction puts on potential buyers.

Just to repeat... pictures, pictures, pictures.

I've found ebay a rough place to sell a car, or expensive items for that matter.

I'll freely admit, while I can critique the heck out of your listing, I'm not nearly so good at creating a good listing of my own. That's a big hit.

About half of my car sales end with trolls and spoofers winning the auctions. Almost never will a backup bidder accept the offer. So I have to wait and relist, over and over again. This is the worse part about selling on ebay.

If the person shows up, they almost invariably want to haggle. I hate that.

Lastly is the paypal burn. As a seller, you are not protected. Well, unless you mail the car through the post office. Otherwise, when the buyer reverses the charge, you lose your money and the car. For that reason, I will not accept paypal for anything.

Paypal burn #2 is their fee.

I'm all the way back to selling on the side of the road with a sign in the window. Something I see a lot more of these days, so I'm not alone.

I've also done fairly well with craigslist, but that's just me.

How about using bringatrailer.com?

I bought and sold a car on Bring a Trailer , it was a very smooth transaction both times and I had a great time interacting with all the guys posting comments.

For a car like yours, I'd say its worth the $250. I believe there might be a referal fee deal, if you want I'll split it with you.

I've done some selling on eBay, but nothing as large/expensive as a car. I assume their fee structure is consistent throughout now though, regardless of what's being sold. If that's true, expect them to keep 10% of the selling price right off the top, so you may have to build that into your price.