eBay advert for a bike I'm selling. (private ad.)

Here's my eBay listing for a KLE500.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160563869865&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

John

 

Why bother setting a £100 start price and a reserve? It just puts
people off bidding.
Either set the start price at the absolute minimum you are willing to
accept , and
think about that carefully as its surprising how people start off at
one price and then
reduce it considerably over a number of weeks , or if you are feeling
brave set it at
a 99p start and it'll sell for whatever its worth.....

Steve

 

What's it like at motorway speeds (just double digit)? I'm still
searching for the perfect commuter, the B6 is the closest I've found.

What's the mpg like?

I really want a Pan Euro for the motorway, and a KTM for the town.

 

I agree with Steve - there's no point in a £100 start at all. If you
simply want to sell it, start it at 99p and no reserve. otherwise pick
the utter minimum you'll take for it and start at that. In my
experience, 99p starts attract more bidders and the price ratchets up
nicely, as they seem to think: "Oh, only another few quid..."

The pix - you need more. Forget eBay's picture hosting: copy and post
this into your auction description, for as many times as you have pix,
obviously pointing it to wherever you're hosting the pix:

<img src="http://www.yourpicturehosting/your bikepicture.jpg">

I'd suggest half a dozen pix as ideal - you've got the main pix, but
you want some more detail shots as well.

 

I may have sent a reply direct to you - sorry about that.

Reply to group ......

I very rarely use it on motorways - when I have, I go along at 70 to 75. In
general use (Knocking about here in Mid-Wales) I get 62mpg.

John

 

I was too nervous of the potential result to start my auction for the
Sprint ST at 99p, so did the "bare minimum" starting price. And got
that + £800.

 

I agree with Steve - there's no point in a £100 start at all. If you
simply want to sell it, start it at 99p and no reserve. otherwise pick
the utter minimum you'll take for it and start at that. In my
experience, 99p starts attract more bidders and the price ratchets up
nicely, as they seem to think: "Oh, only another few quid..."

The pix - you need more. Forget eBay's picture hosting: copy and post
this into your auction description, for as many times as you have pix,
obviously pointing it to wherever you're hosting the pix:

<img src="http://www.yourpicturehosting/your bikepicture.jpg">

I'd suggest half a dozen pix as ideal - you've got the main pix, but
you want some more detail shots as well.

Good point about the photos - I'll get some more later for Flickr - but I'm
happy to send much more detailed pics to those who ask. Do many people buy
bikes on eBay without going to look at them? I've never bought a second hand
bike without having a go on it. I'd much rather people came to look/test
ride - (possibly with cash in their pockets to ride the bike away).

I pondered the reserve price bit - I don't want to sell it for less than
£850 - so I set that as a reserve - I'm happy to tell anyone this. I didn't
want to set my opening price at £850 as this is going to put people off
bidding. So how else was I to make sure it doesn't sell for a lot less than
I'm looking for? An opening bid of 99p seemed silly on a motorbike so I
stuck £100 in the box.

I think what really goes against me selling this easily is my location -
Mid-Wales is a bit of a distance for most potential buyers. I generally have
to travel quite a long way when I buy a new bike (Barnsley, Nottingham and
Newport for the last 3).

John

 

Very few people go and look at a bike first, often because the bike is
simply too far away. This is why a decent description and lots of
photos are utterly essential. Some sellers seem to think that because
they didn't mention the crash damage, and didn't photograph the
scraped side of the bike, that the buyer has to take it, regardless.
That's bollocks, IMHO. If there's something critical that hasn't been
mentioned or pictured, then I walk away or negotiate on the price.

I did that with my GN250. The seller didn't mention that the exhaust
was completely rotted through on the underneath of the silencer, nor
that the headers had completely lost the outside of their double skin
at the manifold, and you couldn't tell from the pix. It sounded like a
machine-gun when I fired it up, but I wanted the bike. A new OE system
was £300: a new pattern one about £120. There was also the matter of
the broken clutch lever, blown headlight bulb and bust indicator, none
of which was mentioned nor visible nor, to be honest,m serious. But
she agreed to knock £100 off the price for the dead exhaust.

I've sold lots of bikes with a 99p start. No worries.

Agreed, that's a major put-off and could easily add £100 to anyone's
purchase cost. I'd lower the reserve to £750.

 

I _strongly_ second TOG's recommendation to host your photos elsewhere and
put links to them in your ebay description- an offer to email hi-res pics
isn't anywhere nearly as compelling as simply offering them up to everyone.

A small amount of work on your part to put the photos on some hosting site
and creating the links in the description and you're done- having to send
emails to various folk is an ongoing thing, and what you're missing by assuming
the offer is equivalent to posting the photos, is that a lot of people simply
won't bother asking for the pics, they'll move on to another auction that does
have good pictures.

What I do with my auctions is to post medium-size pics as thumbnails, with
links to higher-res versions, or include a single link to an album, but thumbnails
on the ebay description page is better by far. And it costs nowt.

<hr>
<a href="http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/ukrm/indian_princess.jpg">
<img src="http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/ukrm/thmb_indian.jpg" ALT="Indian Princess"> </img>
</a>
<br>

<hr>
<a href="http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/ukrm/ghost_mustang.jpg">
<img src="http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/ukrm/thmb_ghost.jpg" ALT="Ghost Mustang"> </img>
</a>
<br>


Rinse & repeat as necessary...


You can view the results of the code above at:

http://www.visi.com/~olsonm/ukrm/testfile.html

(No, it does not validate with the W3C validator, sorry)

 

What the **** is that monstrosity?

 

<snip pix of utterly hideous custom paint job>

<Fixes MO with stern look>

You did that deliberately, didn't uyou?

 

Rumbled.

 

A burd getting a golden shower.

 

Hmmm, does it use much oil?

How much do you want for it?

 

£850 at a guess.

 

It uses no oil - well, around 3 litres and a filter every 5000 miles or so.

£850 or better (minus fees) - I did contemplate dropping the price by
cashing in the tax disc, removing the heated grips and swapping the front
disc back to the original (worn) one, and then sell the new disc - but
decided to set the reserve at £850 and expect sensible buyers to see that
I'm selling a 'get on and ride it now' bike. Bike prices seem to have gone
up in the last year or two and shops seem to be asking silly money for
KLEs - all be it lower mileage, more shiny ones than mine. Mind you, a near
new KLE at around £3000 seems to be quite a bargain comapred with a new
YBR250. Setting an asking price seems to be a bit of a black art.

I have no idea what it will go for but early bids could indicate reasonable
news for me next Thursday. Those more experienced than me will be noddding
sagely at this point.

If you do go out buy a KLE then an EBC disc and sintered pads will usefully
improve the front brake.

John

 

I was waiting for you to pipe up.

 

That got to your reserve pdq.

 

Just a minor point.

Can you let me know the secret of getting an MOT for longer than 18
months? Mine normally onlyy last a year, and I would much rather have a
longer one.

 

Retired see. Often don't know what day it is - I'm now getting the years
confused.