eBay is full of idiots, apparently. The site attracts a significant number of time wasters and other fools making selling a car on there a remarkably hit and miss affair. Well, so I am told.
Now I have been using eBay to buy and sell for some 12 years now. I registered my own account there is January 1999 but was using a chum's account to play with it before then. In that time I have sold plenty of tat and also plenty of cars. A few years ago when eBay was “hot” and not so many people had home computers or digital cameras as they do now I used to sell cars for my mates who wanted to punt them on using the renowned auction site. So I have sold comfortably more cars on there than I have owned in the same period. I don't know, 35 cars? More? This includes bikes, trucks, trailers and so forth. I was listing a couple a month at one point. Then I worried I might look like a dealer so trained my chums to do their own eBay sales.
I mention all of this, not as some form of boast but because I don't recognise the description I hear frequently about “eBay messers” and that I say that from a position of at least “reasonable”experience.
So I started to wonder why some people have a different experience of selling on eBay and I must assume that either the cause is some form of bad karma or perhaps its something in the way they list their cars up for sale.
So I thought I'd share my experience, and the tips and tricks I have picked up along the way, and I'm happy to admit I'm learning as I go still, and that I'm happy to learn from others who have advice which can show positive results.
I'll go first and then we can share after. OK?
Of all the many vehicles I have sold on eBay I can say I have had just a few bad experiences. Looking back I can see either where I went wrong or what I could have done to prevent the problem.
1. I had a Saab 9000 16V (one of mine) and it sold for £350 via a “buy it now” to some fool in London who “did it by accident”. After that I never put a “buy it now” on my car listing (except for trying the “best offer” system – see below) and I never had the problem again. If I need to end an auction early I do it by ending the auction early. I sold the Saab by relisting it and got what I wanted for it, a chap came from Wales for it, I forget exactly but £370 rings a bell.
2. I more recently sold a Lexus LS400 which to be honest I was feeling like I was going to have to drive into the Trent to get rid of. So I put it on eBay for a “best offers” with a starting price of £995 and thinking I'd take £700 and consider anything above £500. I had no offers for days. I had no views. I was beginning to think nobody wanted the thing and I got an offer of £500 which I accepted just before the listing was to expire.
Well, then came the fun part. I'm sure that this routine will seem sadly familiar to some of you and luckily I have only had it the one time. At the appointed hour for collection a car, or was it two cars pulled up. From the two cars about a dozen people spewed. Very quickly these people are milling about all over the place saying “Yeah, nice here innit” “Can I use your bathroom please mate?” “Can I have a glass of water mate” “What’s a house round here worth then mate?” “there's a scratch there mate” “Not much tread left on this tyre here mate” “What's your best price mate?” “is that your car as well then there mate?” “I think the exhaust blowing innit” “What's your best price mate?” “you lived here long mate?” “I think there's some rust coming through there though mate” “What's your best price mate?” So there is a horde of marauding hagglers running riot about your property, doing your head right in, and eventually you feel that you are prepared to accept whatever derisory offer the chap is making just to get them to shut up and go away. This is obviously their intention. If I had put the car through a regular auction I could have just said “sod off then, I'll sell it to the next highest bidder”. But I had no other bidder. I had a car which to all intents and purposes I could not sell to anyone. So I took £400 and off they went.
Using “the system(TM)” - more of which below - I bet I could have got £500-£600 easily and no messing about.
3. I was selling my wife's Mini Sprite. I had it on eBay with a reserve of £2500 IIRC. Suddenly reserve is met. I checked the high bidder – zero feedback and registered in the Philippines or Malaysia (I forget which). Also he is bidding on about 100 other cars in the classic section. I cancel his bid. From then I set the option “block bids from countries I do not ship to” and make sure I put cars as “local collection only”. Reserve did not meet but I did a deal with the high bidder and sold it about £2200 IIRC and went off to Shropshire I think.
4. This was the daddy of all ballsups. I had an old Yank Tank which did not run at all well. I'd thrown a pile of money at it and had given up. Stop me if this one sounds familiar. Anyway, I had replaced so much that I reckoned it just needed setting up properly, and said as much in my ad. Anyway, I perhaps over-stated what a great opportunity the car was for its next owner. I got a bunch of offers all about £700-£800 for it but I was holding out for £1200.
I needed £1200 because I'd put down a deposit on the next car and I needed £1200 to pay the balance. This was a mistake. It made me a very motivated seller... perhaps overly motivated. Never commit to what you can't cover from cash.
So anyway I got £1200 bid, reserve met, the guy came and was a bit iffy about the car. Rather than saying “if you think it is not as advertised then, meh, go away, I'll make a second chance offer to the next bidder” I rather forced him to take the thing. Coerced might be a better term. Then it all got very messy as he turned very aggressive on the subject of the car not being as described and the motor being “knackered” rather than just needing some setting up. Much of which was his interpretation of my description. Lets just say forcing a sale is not the answer.
If you don't use a reserve then you don't risk having a huge gap between the winning bidder and the next bidder – reserve of £1200 means high bidder bid £1200 but second bidder may have only bid £700. Again use “The System(TM)” and also if you smell that your buyer may turn odd on you, let him walk out of the sale, in fact encourage it. You have other buyers waiting... Reserves also cost you money to add and can result in a lower sale price...
Part of the problem is that people over estimate the value of their cars, or are greedy, or mistake “what I need to get for it” to be its market value. Possibly a mixture of the three...
So to sell your car on eBay, without disappointing low bids, reserves not met, the only bidders being time wasters, there are some steps to follow.
The System ™
First, and this is very important, you need to have a realistic valuation of the car you are selling. Cars have several values: your bottom price, a reasonable asking price and your “If I was really lucky I could get” price. Don't start with the highest. If a “reasonable” price is lower than your bottom price then think again! Set in your mind that you will get the bottom price. This may sound like lowering your expectations, but its just about being reasonable. There is only really one price and that is the amount of money someone is prepared to pay for it. When it goes for more, thenyou will be happy!
With the Mustang I really needed to get a grand for it. That was my bottom price. A reasonable price I thought would be £1200-£1500 for it. Using The System ™ I got £1750 for it. I could be a dreamer like the guy trying to get £9K for one right now but I guarantee I'd still have it now if I did...
Next fix anything which can be easily dealt with, especially obvious faults. If it can't be easily dealt with accept that it will potentially affect the final sale price of the car. Don't spend more than its worth doing so but basic repairs which need doing will make it seem to many buyers like your car is uncared for and likely is abused and worn out.
Worst lie on eBay: “I haven't had time to take it down for an MoT”. I'd rather see a short fail sheet list than wonder what could be up with it. I'm sure most buyers are the same. Don't bother taxing it (unless its free!) as I bet you won't make that much difference to the sale price.
Third clean it inside and out. I'm astounded how many dirty cars get advertised and you may not care, “grime is not a crime” or whatever, but at least a proportion of your potential bidders will care and it will affect sale price. Messy insides look the worst. It really makes a car look uncared for which deters bidders. De-clutter. I left the child seat in the Mustang when I advertised it to emphasise that it was a daily driven pseudo-family car but made sure to take everything else out. You can put it all back in again after the photos...
Take good photos, lots of them. How many cars are listed on eBay with 2 badly focused snaps off a mobile phone taken in the dark and which crop off one end of the car or another? Or are in the wrong orientation? Do these people really expect to get good money when you can't see what you are buying? If you don't have a digital camera borrow one. If you don't know how to use it, borrow the person who does. When I sold my Omega I sold it for about 40% more than the average bid price (against a reserve not met usually) and got well more than a thousand page views and I put that in a great part down to the fact I had good clear photos showing the car in detail. I had a front shot, a rear shot, a front interior, rear interior and load bay interior shots. Then I had one of the front driver's wing, front driver's door, rear driver's door... etc... right the way around the car. eBay gives you 12 free photos with a car listing now so use them! If you are selling something a bit special then I'd go with some nice arty shots as well, to set the tone. I tried a bit of this with the Mustang advert and the sale went well. So long as you have plenty of “straight” clear photos too. With the Mustang I followed advice from Bruce (Mystery Machine) to put the photos into the text (I used the HTML option, not the regular editor to do this – not sure if there is an easier way) which makes for a nice layout but I'm not sure if it made much difference. Photos this way can be as large as you like and need to be hosted somewhere like Photobucket without having to pay for eBay's Supersize or “picture pack” or whatever..
Step four is to cook up a description. This is your sales pitch. If your local Ford main dealer ran adverts in the local press running 3 paragraphs promising legal action against people who came to look at a new Fiesta but didn't buy one in the end, or misspelt common words pertaining to car parts like “breaks” “cills” “interia” and so forth, how many cars do you think they would sell? You are in the same business as them! I appreciate that for some people written English is hard work. In which case find someone who will (in exchange for a beer or whatever) write up a description in decent grammar, covering all of the various salient points of the vehicle, arrangements for viewing and no more. The only permissible additional information is that the car is advertised elsewhere and may be withdrawn. This is your “licence” to end it early.
Before you even get to the meat and potatoes of the description though you need a title and “details”. Now you would think this was stating the obvious but judging by the number of cars listed with a title of “CAR” and when you go do an advanced search by make or year and you see “Unspecified” has 2134 listings in it you realise some people are just missing the whole point. If you are a buyer, and if you can be bothered, you can find some bargains this way. If you are a seller then don't mess this up! Put a meaningful title. If you list by registration number eBay will fill in most of the details such as registration date, tax, MOT, number of keepers, etc. (but check these are all completed and correct) and may suggest a title of “FORD CAPRI RED 2DR SALOON” because that’s what the DVLA record for it is titled. “Awesome retro Mk3 Ford Capri long T&T” draws the punters in better... And making sure stuff like that its a Mk3 or whatever will help it appear in the search results. Making sure the details are filled in helps people find it who search using those advanced properties. It also should avoid annoying questions about if it has T&T or not.
If you (or your literate chum) are anything like me then they can neither spell nor type. More years than I care to remember in IT and the keyboard still trips me up, plus I am mildly dyslexic. If you use Firefox or Chrome to access the internet then you will find misspellings are underlined in red. If you use IE 7 or 8 then you can get a plug in tool bar spell checker for free. Not sure if it works with IE9 which is still in Beta. Even better though is that you do what I do which is compose your listings (and your forum posts) in a word processor. King of these is Microsoft Office Word but if you don't have that, and your PC was bought through a retailer chances are you have Microsoft Works preinstalled which does much the same stuff. If you don't have that or some other office suite then download Open Office or OfficeLibre which are the same thing and free. It takes me so long to put together a properly worded listing that its the only way I can do it. Also I can email the listing to a mate and say “what do you reckon to this, am I over-selling it, have I missed anything out?” before I then copy and paste the text into the text box on the site in question and press submit.
Avoid personal attacks on people who didn't complete an earlier sale on the car or diatribes on “these messers who are ruining eBay, you know who you are” which just make you look like a vindictive nut. You may well be a vindictive nut but best to keep that hidden whilst selling the car... You will scare buyers away with an obviously belligerent attitude.
I have the same opinion of “joke” listings. One man's humour is another man's insult and when you try being funny in a listing you just attract all the weirdos who need to prove they are funnier than you. Its like heckling on the internet. Keep it to the business if you want to sell the car. If you want to play with nutters join an internet forum...
Your description should be honest but portray the car in its best reasonable light. Long lists of faults just make the car seem like a nail when all it is really is a few niggles and such which anyone would expect in a car of that age. So say so. “Car has a few niggles and such which anyone would expect in a car of this age” covers that unless your definition of a niggle is “cannot select any forward gears. Motor seized”. I've seen people list pretty much every stone chip and its just unnecessary and off-putting. As is bright red 72 point font, you may be myopic but I am not.
Think what information you (or a reasonable buyer) would need to know about the car to make a decision about it. Put that information in the listing. A paragraph each on mechanicals/driving, body, interior. Maybe some detail on the history of the car or the marque if its something rare. Don't go off on tangents. Raymanboy was an internet legend but I don't think he ever sold a car.
Should you include your mobile in the ad? That is up to you. I put “email me for my direct contact details”. Amazingly few people every phone me. Maybe I specialise in selling to sociopaths and people with autism but 99% of the time the first contact with the buyer is when they have won the auction, pretty much every car I have sold on eBay was sold to someone who had not seen it. I'm still amazed by this and for years spent ages trying to get people to view before bidding. They don't. Reflect this in your description.
With the description out of the way the fifth step is to come up with your start price. This is easy. Its 99p. Your reserve is as easy to work out. There is not one. A low start stimulates interest but if you out a reserve on which is too high then that initial momentum will not be maintained. If you put a reserve on which is “too low” so it is quickly met, then you may as well not bother with a reserve and save yourself the money. If you start the car at what you want for it, whether that is your bottom price or your “reasonable” price then you risk losing bids and watchers to people who are wrapped up in an auction with plenty of bidding action taking place. You may get no bids or just the one or two. I have to say I am really convinced by the 99p no reserve approach, having migrated there from 99p start and a low reserve. It took me a bit of convincing (again Bruce) but it does work. That low reserve was just wasting me money. A high reserve will really deter bidders.
Here is an example of how reserves deter buyers... I was looking at a car I really liked. Bid price was like £700 and I was really excited. I'd have paid £2000-£2500 for it. So I was so itchy to find out what the reserve was, and the seller wasn't saying, so I bid £79995 on it. Obviously way over the reserve. It popped up at £3750 reserve met. So I then cancelled by bid, stating “incorrect amount bid” and rebid £799.95 on it. So it pops up to £810 reserve not met with another bidder. After that I didn't bother looking at it again. The auction ended about £1700 IIRC, reserve not met. I bought something else and not so long after it was on for “£3500 Buy It Now” and then again for “£2500 or offers”. I'd have talked an offer then, if I didn't already have a nice new car...
I don't know what it sold for, but I do know the more times you put the same car on eBay the lower the price becomes...
I know when I have put a reserve on cars before, and people email me to ask what the reserve is, they hardly ever bid on the car once I tell them.
I have to thank Bruce for putting me onto the liberating effect of the no reserve option. Its another way of making your auction stand out because people think “he's mad - what it if only sells for 99p???” but the thing about eBay is that stuff never sells cheap if its listed right. Think of all your eBay bargain buys, I bet most were due to the seller cocking up the listing in some way...
On the subject of price – you need to know your “Buy It Now” price. Yeah, I know I said not to put a “buy it now” option on the listing but we did put “I have the car advertised elsewhere and reserve the right to end early” and when ever I see that in a listing I know that is code for “I will sell outside of the auction”. So I enquire “what price is the car advertised for elsewhere?” and negotiations can start. You will get people ask this, or ask if there is a buy it now price you have in mind. This should be the top end of your “reasonable” price range. When I sold the Mustang I had a couple of people ask what was my buy it now and I said £1500. I had no takers at that but it bid to £1750 so I “won” that one.
More advice from Mystery Machine which I followed with the Mustang and did well, but cannot confirm if this was due to the following steps or just down to a great listing is to put your car on a 10 day listing timed to end on a Sunday evening some time between 8 and 9 pm. This gives any potential viewers 2 weekends in which to come and view. Bruce is of the opinion that there is more browsing of eBay on a Sunday evening than any other day or time.
Now I have been using eBay to buy and sell for some 12 years now. I registered my own account there is January 1999 but was using a chum's account to play with it before then. In that time I have sold plenty of tat and also plenty of cars. A few years ago when eBay was “hot” and not so many people had home computers or digital cameras as they do now I used to sell cars for my mates who wanted to punt them on using the renowned auction site. So I have sold comfortably more cars on there than I have owned in the same period. I don't know, 35 cars? More? This includes bikes, trucks, trailers and so forth. I was listing a couple a month at one point. Then I worried I might look like a dealer so trained my chums to do their own eBay sales.
I mention all of this, not as some form of boast but because I don't recognise the description I hear frequently about “eBay messers” and that I say that from a position of at least “reasonable”experience.
So I started to wonder why some people have a different experience of selling on eBay and I must assume that either the cause is some form of bad karma or perhaps its something in the way they list their cars up for sale.
So I thought I'd share my experience, and the tips and tricks I have picked up along the way, and I'm happy to admit I'm learning as I go still, and that I'm happy to learn from others who have advice which can show positive results.
I'll go first and then we can share after. OK?
Of all the many vehicles I have sold on eBay I can say I have had just a few bad experiences. Looking back I can see either where I went wrong or what I could have done to prevent the problem.
1. I had a Saab 9000 16V (one of mine) and it sold for £350 via a “buy it now” to some fool in London who “did it by accident”. After that I never put a “buy it now” on my car listing (except for trying the “best offer” system – see below) and I never had the problem again. If I need to end an auction early I do it by ending the auction early. I sold the Saab by relisting it and got what I wanted for it, a chap came from Wales for it, I forget exactly but £370 rings a bell.
2. I more recently sold a Lexus LS400 which to be honest I was feeling like I was going to have to drive into the Trent to get rid of. So I put it on eBay for a “best offers” with a starting price of £995 and thinking I'd take £700 and consider anything above £500. I had no offers for days. I had no views. I was beginning to think nobody wanted the thing and I got an offer of £500 which I accepted just before the listing was to expire.
Well, then came the fun part. I'm sure that this routine will seem sadly familiar to some of you and luckily I have only had it the one time. At the appointed hour for collection a car, or was it two cars pulled up. From the two cars about a dozen people spewed. Very quickly these people are milling about all over the place saying “Yeah, nice here innit” “Can I use your bathroom please mate?” “Can I have a glass of water mate” “What’s a house round here worth then mate?” “there's a scratch there mate” “Not much tread left on this tyre here mate” “What's your best price mate?” “is that your car as well then there mate?” “I think the exhaust blowing innit” “What's your best price mate?” “you lived here long mate?” “I think there's some rust coming through there though mate” “What's your best price mate?” So there is a horde of marauding hagglers running riot about your property, doing your head right in, and eventually you feel that you are prepared to accept whatever derisory offer the chap is making just to get them to shut up and go away. This is obviously their intention. If I had put the car through a regular auction I could have just said “sod off then, I'll sell it to the next highest bidder”. But I had no other bidder. I had a car which to all intents and purposes I could not sell to anyone. So I took £400 and off they went.
Using “the system(TM)” - more of which below - I bet I could have got £500-£600 easily and no messing about.
3. I was selling my wife's Mini Sprite. I had it on eBay with a reserve of £2500 IIRC. Suddenly reserve is met. I checked the high bidder – zero feedback and registered in the Philippines or Malaysia (I forget which). Also he is bidding on about 100 other cars in the classic section. I cancel his bid. From then I set the option “block bids from countries I do not ship to” and make sure I put cars as “local collection only”. Reserve did not meet but I did a deal with the high bidder and sold it about £2200 IIRC and went off to Shropshire I think.
4. This was the daddy of all ballsups. I had an old Yank Tank which did not run at all well. I'd thrown a pile of money at it and had given up. Stop me if this one sounds familiar. Anyway, I had replaced so much that I reckoned it just needed setting up properly, and said as much in my ad. Anyway, I perhaps over-stated what a great opportunity the car was for its next owner. I got a bunch of offers all about £700-£800 for it but I was holding out for £1200.
I needed £1200 because I'd put down a deposit on the next car and I needed £1200 to pay the balance. This was a mistake. It made me a very motivated seller... perhaps overly motivated. Never commit to what you can't cover from cash.
So anyway I got £1200 bid, reserve met, the guy came and was a bit iffy about the car. Rather than saying “if you think it is not as advertised then, meh, go away, I'll make a second chance offer to the next bidder” I rather forced him to take the thing. Coerced might be a better term. Then it all got very messy as he turned very aggressive on the subject of the car not being as described and the motor being “knackered” rather than just needing some setting up. Much of which was his interpretation of my description. Lets just say forcing a sale is not the answer.
If you don't use a reserve then you don't risk having a huge gap between the winning bidder and the next bidder – reserve of £1200 means high bidder bid £1200 but second bidder may have only bid £700. Again use “The System(TM)” and also if you smell that your buyer may turn odd on you, let him walk out of the sale, in fact encourage it. You have other buyers waiting... Reserves also cost you money to add and can result in a lower sale price...
Part of the problem is that people over estimate the value of their cars, or are greedy, or mistake “what I need to get for it” to be its market value. Possibly a mixture of the three...
So to sell your car on eBay, without disappointing low bids, reserves not met, the only bidders being time wasters, there are some steps to follow.
The System ™
First, and this is very important, you need to have a realistic valuation of the car you are selling. Cars have several values: your bottom price, a reasonable asking price and your “If I was really lucky I could get” price. Don't start with the highest. If a “reasonable” price is lower than your bottom price then think again! Set in your mind that you will get the bottom price. This may sound like lowering your expectations, but its just about being reasonable. There is only really one price and that is the amount of money someone is prepared to pay for it. When it goes for more, thenyou will be happy!
With the Mustang I really needed to get a grand for it. That was my bottom price. A reasonable price I thought would be £1200-£1500 for it. Using The System ™ I got £1750 for it. I could be a dreamer like the guy trying to get £9K for one right now but I guarantee I'd still have it now if I did...
Next fix anything which can be easily dealt with, especially obvious faults. If it can't be easily dealt with accept that it will potentially affect the final sale price of the car. Don't spend more than its worth doing so but basic repairs which need doing will make it seem to many buyers like your car is uncared for and likely is abused and worn out.
Worst lie on eBay: “I haven't had time to take it down for an MoT”. I'd rather see a short fail sheet list than wonder what could be up with it. I'm sure most buyers are the same. Don't bother taxing it (unless its free!) as I bet you won't make that much difference to the sale price.
Third clean it inside and out. I'm astounded how many dirty cars get advertised and you may not care, “grime is not a crime” or whatever, but at least a proportion of your potential bidders will care and it will affect sale price. Messy insides look the worst. It really makes a car look uncared for which deters bidders. De-clutter. I left the child seat in the Mustang when I advertised it to emphasise that it was a daily driven pseudo-family car but made sure to take everything else out. You can put it all back in again after the photos...
Take good photos, lots of them. How many cars are listed on eBay with 2 badly focused snaps off a mobile phone taken in the dark and which crop off one end of the car or another? Or are in the wrong orientation? Do these people really expect to get good money when you can't see what you are buying? If you don't have a digital camera borrow one. If you don't know how to use it, borrow the person who does. When I sold my Omega I sold it for about 40% more than the average bid price (against a reserve not met usually) and got well more than a thousand page views and I put that in a great part down to the fact I had good clear photos showing the car in detail. I had a front shot, a rear shot, a front interior, rear interior and load bay interior shots. Then I had one of the front driver's wing, front driver's door, rear driver's door... etc... right the way around the car. eBay gives you 12 free photos with a car listing now so use them! If you are selling something a bit special then I'd go with some nice arty shots as well, to set the tone. I tried a bit of this with the Mustang advert and the sale went well. So long as you have plenty of “straight” clear photos too. With the Mustang I followed advice from Bruce (Mystery Machine) to put the photos into the text (I used the HTML option, not the regular editor to do this – not sure if there is an easier way) which makes for a nice layout but I'm not sure if it made much difference. Photos this way can be as large as you like and need to be hosted somewhere like Photobucket without having to pay for eBay's Supersize or “picture pack” or whatever..
Step four is to cook up a description. This is your sales pitch. If your local Ford main dealer ran adverts in the local press running 3 paragraphs promising legal action against people who came to look at a new Fiesta but didn't buy one in the end, or misspelt common words pertaining to car parts like “breaks” “cills” “interia” and so forth, how many cars do you think they would sell? You are in the same business as them! I appreciate that for some people written English is hard work. In which case find someone who will (in exchange for a beer or whatever) write up a description in decent grammar, covering all of the various salient points of the vehicle, arrangements for viewing and no more. The only permissible additional information is that the car is advertised elsewhere and may be withdrawn. This is your “licence” to end it early.
Before you even get to the meat and potatoes of the description though you need a title and “details”. Now you would think this was stating the obvious but judging by the number of cars listed with a title of “CAR” and when you go do an advanced search by make or year and you see “Unspecified” has 2134 listings in it you realise some people are just missing the whole point. If you are a buyer, and if you can be bothered, you can find some bargains this way. If you are a seller then don't mess this up! Put a meaningful title. If you list by registration number eBay will fill in most of the details such as registration date, tax, MOT, number of keepers, etc. (but check these are all completed and correct) and may suggest a title of “FORD CAPRI RED 2DR SALOON” because that’s what the DVLA record for it is titled. “Awesome retro Mk3 Ford Capri long T&T” draws the punters in better... And making sure stuff like that its a Mk3 or whatever will help it appear in the search results. Making sure the details are filled in helps people find it who search using those advanced properties. It also should avoid annoying questions about if it has T&T or not.
If you (or your literate chum) are anything like me then they can neither spell nor type. More years than I care to remember in IT and the keyboard still trips me up, plus I am mildly dyslexic. If you use Firefox or Chrome to access the internet then you will find misspellings are underlined in red. If you use IE 7 or 8 then you can get a plug in tool bar spell checker for free. Not sure if it works with IE9 which is still in Beta. Even better though is that you do what I do which is compose your listings (and your forum posts) in a word processor. King of these is Microsoft Office Word but if you don't have that, and your PC was bought through a retailer chances are you have Microsoft Works preinstalled which does much the same stuff. If you don't have that or some other office suite then download Open Office or OfficeLibre which are the same thing and free. It takes me so long to put together a properly worded listing that its the only way I can do it. Also I can email the listing to a mate and say “what do you reckon to this, am I over-selling it, have I missed anything out?” before I then copy and paste the text into the text box on the site in question and press submit.
Avoid personal attacks on people who didn't complete an earlier sale on the car or diatribes on “these messers who are ruining eBay, you know who you are” which just make you look like a vindictive nut. You may well be a vindictive nut but best to keep that hidden whilst selling the car... You will scare buyers away with an obviously belligerent attitude.
I have the same opinion of “joke” listings. One man's humour is another man's insult and when you try being funny in a listing you just attract all the weirdos who need to prove they are funnier than you. Its like heckling on the internet. Keep it to the business if you want to sell the car. If you want to play with nutters join an internet forum...
Your description should be honest but portray the car in its best reasonable light. Long lists of faults just make the car seem like a nail when all it is really is a few niggles and such which anyone would expect in a car of that age. So say so. “Car has a few niggles and such which anyone would expect in a car of this age” covers that unless your definition of a niggle is “cannot select any forward gears. Motor seized”. I've seen people list pretty much every stone chip and its just unnecessary and off-putting. As is bright red 72 point font, you may be myopic but I am not.
Think what information you (or a reasonable buyer) would need to know about the car to make a decision about it. Put that information in the listing. A paragraph each on mechanicals/driving, body, interior. Maybe some detail on the history of the car or the marque if its something rare. Don't go off on tangents. Raymanboy was an internet legend but I don't think he ever sold a car.
Should you include your mobile in the ad? That is up to you. I put “email me for my direct contact details”. Amazingly few people every phone me. Maybe I specialise in selling to sociopaths and people with autism but 99% of the time the first contact with the buyer is when they have won the auction, pretty much every car I have sold on eBay was sold to someone who had not seen it. I'm still amazed by this and for years spent ages trying to get people to view before bidding. They don't. Reflect this in your description.
With the description out of the way the fifth step is to come up with your start price. This is easy. Its 99p. Your reserve is as easy to work out. There is not one. A low start stimulates interest but if you out a reserve on which is too high then that initial momentum will not be maintained. If you put a reserve on which is “too low” so it is quickly met, then you may as well not bother with a reserve and save yourself the money. If you start the car at what you want for it, whether that is your bottom price or your “reasonable” price then you risk losing bids and watchers to people who are wrapped up in an auction with plenty of bidding action taking place. You may get no bids or just the one or two. I have to say I am really convinced by the 99p no reserve approach, having migrated there from 99p start and a low reserve. It took me a bit of convincing (again Bruce) but it does work. That low reserve was just wasting me money. A high reserve will really deter bidders.
Here is an example of how reserves deter buyers... I was looking at a car I really liked. Bid price was like £700 and I was really excited. I'd have paid £2000-£2500 for it. So I was so itchy to find out what the reserve was, and the seller wasn't saying, so I bid £79995 on it. Obviously way over the reserve. It popped up at £3750 reserve met. So I then cancelled by bid, stating “incorrect amount bid” and rebid £799.95 on it. So it pops up to £810 reserve not met with another bidder. After that I didn't bother looking at it again. The auction ended about £1700 IIRC, reserve not met. I bought something else and not so long after it was on for “£3500 Buy It Now” and then again for “£2500 or offers”. I'd have talked an offer then, if I didn't already have a nice new car...
I don't know what it sold for, but I do know the more times you put the same car on eBay the lower the price becomes...
I know when I have put a reserve on cars before, and people email me to ask what the reserve is, they hardly ever bid on the car once I tell them.
I have to thank Bruce for putting me onto the liberating effect of the no reserve option. Its another way of making your auction stand out because people think “he's mad - what it if only sells for 99p???” but the thing about eBay is that stuff never sells cheap if its listed right. Think of all your eBay bargain buys, I bet most were due to the seller cocking up the listing in some way...
On the subject of price – you need to know your “Buy It Now” price. Yeah, I know I said not to put a “buy it now” option on the listing but we did put “I have the car advertised elsewhere and reserve the right to end early” and when ever I see that in a listing I know that is code for “I will sell outside of the auction”. So I enquire “what price is the car advertised for elsewhere?” and negotiations can start. You will get people ask this, or ask if there is a buy it now price you have in mind. This should be the top end of your “reasonable” price range. When I sold the Mustang I had a couple of people ask what was my buy it now and I said £1500. I had no takers at that but it bid to £1750 so I “won” that one.
More advice from Mystery Machine which I followed with the Mustang and did well, but cannot confirm if this was due to the following steps or just down to a great listing is to put your car on a 10 day listing timed to end on a Sunday evening some time between 8 and 9 pm. This gives any potential viewers 2 weekends in which to come and view. Bruce is of the opinion that there is more browsing of eBay on a Sunday evening than any other day or time.
Wasn't much for the Granada though, not the best example 
) are often more to do with the attitude of the sellers than buyers. I wouldn't buy anything from someone who feels the need to tell me in capital letters that the last person who tried to buy something off them was a time wasting idiot. 
