eBay

Out of curiosity, I've been watching some 3X8's on eBay for about a month or so. Of the 25 cars I set up to watch, only 1 actually sold (AHudson's 328). All the rest either had a too high initial bid requirement and no bids were placed, or the reserve was not met.

My conclusion: either most sellers aren't recognizing the current market, or eBay doesn't appear to be a great place to sell a Ferrari.

 

EBAY is a good advertising venue. Some of those cars that don't meet reserve may exchange hands outside of EBAY after negotiating. The high reserve is like an asking price.

 

Mine sold through Ebay. I ended my auction early. I bought one on Ebay before also. I think it is a great place to sell/buy but the sellers need to be realistic about the prices.

 

i bought my latest for 2 months on ebay

 

It was your exact observation that caused me to do "no reserve". Figured those with reserves were getting some bidders up to a frenzy then letting them down. That was my strategy anyway, though I feel my car was wisely purchased a bit below market.

As is usual, it's a 'time vs money' thing. I coulda waited, held a reserve, marketed more broadly, been interviewed by every unserious nitwit out there and a precious FEW serious lookers and likely ended up with a couple more thousand to show for it.

Was it worth 20 more hours spread over 2 months, heading into winter/pre-Christmas car buying slowdown? Not to me.

 

When I started looking a few months ago, I used eBay as a source as well. Even though I own a 308 now, I still look just because it's interesting. I've noticed that even cars with a low opening bid are not getting a lot of play.

Speaking of eBay, this made me laugh:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350253343208

I love the description -- "This car looks exactly like a 308 ferrari." Apparently he's never seen a real 308 before?

 

I can't say for sure without consulting some old mid-1980's car magazines, but this seems to resemble one of the modified Firebirds hawked by the "other guy" (Phillip Michael Thomas) on Miami Vice. The car or the company was called Machiavelli. I think they had two models (or maybe just two different trim levels), one called the Machiavelli Max, if I recall. They might have sold the parts as a kit, too. They briefly advertised them in the "DuPont Registry" section in the back of Automobile magazine, I remember. I also remember, possibly in the same magazine, a hilarious interview with him about the cars, where he kept avoiding just calling it a re-bodied Firebird even though that's exactly what it was. The Ferrari 3x8 inspiration is obviously a lovely car... the Firebird, in the right trim, could be a decent looker, too... this "combination" of the two, SIMPLY HORRENDOUS!!

 

I also have been watching and bidding 328s on FleaBay. AHudson's 328 caught my eye and got me to call him and seriously bid because he took the time to write a very descriptive listing. It is all in the marketing that gets the bids in my opinion.

Well Done, Adams on your listing!

 

It looks exactly like a Firebird with an ugly, badly proportioned, and unnecessary triangular hole cut in the side.
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As for eBay, I bought my (real ) 308 on eBay - but the circumstances are unlikely to be repeated:

1. He lived 30 miles north of me;
2. He agreed to let me inspect the car prior to bidding;
3. He agreed to let me test drive the car after bidding - and withdraw from the sale if all was not correct;
4. My winning bid was so low that another 308 in excellent shape will probably never be sold at this price again.

eBay worked for me. . . But I wouldn't recommend it to other Ferrari buyers!

(And yes, I'm quite sure. . . I didn't get ripped off and mistakenly buy a Pontiac.)

 

Ferraris seem to be getting very little love on eBay, I'm amazed at how low the bidding ends on most of them (or no bids even at a low opening price).

Early 911s, on the other hand, seem to be selling pretty well. Including some real rust buckets that I have looked at in person, laughed at, only to see them sell at a pretty high price (presumably sight unseen).

 

Ebay def helped in my case, just sold the 85 308 GTB. My reserve was the asking price, and yes, it was used more for advertisement purposes. I linked craigslist, cars.com, webshots, youtube all back to the craigslist and ebay links. Seemed like it helped a lot by doing that. I know that webshots is somewhat of a tool that many people look at for new photos but i was shocked after I got over 3,000 views in just 1 week. Ebay had over 2000 views after 5 days and 35 people watching the car. I only received one request from cars.com, but my cars.com site actually had the ebay link on it so I really cant judge that website.

My goal was to try and be descriptive as possible when writing my vehicle posting. To me, I wouldnt even look twice at an ebay ad that is almost a paragraph long with only a few pics.

 

sold mine on cars dot com in three days,didn't like the way bidders on ebay bid and then don't follow through

 

I've bought and sold probably 20 cars on ebay. But only 3 of those were actual ebay auction sales. The rest were merely an advertisement to get the buyer and seller together. It ain't all bad.

 

I've bought and sold many, many cars through ebay. Not one transaction has been a disappointment or gone wrong. If you do a good job of marketing (good pics, links from elsewhere, etc.) on the seller side and a good job of asking questions on the buyer side then it's a very reasonable forum in which to conduct some sales. Pricing tends to be about halfway between brick and mortar dealer retail and wholesale pricing. I'm not sure why it's called fleabay by some.

The last ferrari I bought through ebay was a great car and in very good shape in all respects. A small amount of work brought it to the level of what you would expect from a high-end specialty boutique dealer in a major city. The price was very reasonable and the seller was a good guy - everything worked out without a hitch.

 

I've purchased two cars that I saw on Ebay in the past year, including a 94 Acura Legend directly from bidding on Ebay and the Mondial directly from CarConnectionsUSA after having seen it on Ebay first and both have worked out really well for us, especially the Mondial.