That Immensely Popular Website That Begins With an "E"!

E-bay has been good to me for finding parts, and I have sold alot of parts to fellow car guys out of the U.S.A. that don't have the swapmeets and junkyards like we do. Tofind that old american iron

 

The guys in Australia and New Zealand must have a real love for the cars to pay the shipping costs envolved. Always try to see if there is a container on the West Coast that will add items to save on shipping costs. I've misplaced the names of the companies that provide this service.

 

Yeah, I wish a lot of things were like they used to be. I'd be just as happy if the whole "digital revolution" had never happened and computers only existed in huge rooms in banks. However, this is the world we're stuck with. If you like telling stories, then tell stories. You should know by now, you can't believe half of what people tell you about their cars anyway.

 

2 states ?, even 30 minutes...

 

All,

I've been marketing cars for clients on ebay and other sites for over 10 years. Ebay is definitely a way to get the cars or parts you want to sell seen worldwide. Honestly, I use ebay for the exposure...if it sells..it sells, but the contacts I've made have been invaluable. Same goes here for the HAMB, great contacts, friends, mutual interests and make some $$ to fund your passions. What could be better? and as long as the government keeps their nose out of it...all the better. Check out the cars I currently have running on ebay. My username is firsttrade26.

Murph

 

I'm pretty sure Ebay owns PayPal.

Murph

 

I accept US Money Orders/Personal Checks as a form of payment on Ebay,who says your not allowed to????

 

They do. Unless they changed policy, if those words Money order and check are in your listing, they will delete it.

this is since Oct last year I think.

I think it sucks and a big reason why I have cut WAY back on ebay sales.

And to the person that said something about involving the Gov't, thats the reason for only allowing electronic (IE traceable) transactions.
Too many people making a living and not paying taxes.

 

only reason i like e-bay is cause i live on long island where the only parts you find are from like the 70"s and up..i cant use this crap...
all i have to do is look up what i want and if its not way overley priced and in good shape i usaully get it ...otherwise i try to hit the swap meet ..wich again only has a limited amount of parts i can use ..

 

I heart eBay.

 

Anyone consider the laziness/greediness of some sellers on Ebay? They are just as responsible for the decline of swap meets. Why haul all that crap to a show if you can post a pic, sit, and wait?

I've been sniped on more than one occasion on Ebay, and I am fairly certain that it's being done by guys that are going to turn around and sell em again at a higher price after they apply a little spit shine. (In case you don't know what Ebay sniping is, its when a buyer puts in a bid at the last moment so you can't counter.) Yeah, I know. You should have bid higher. But... when I have the highest bid and then all of a sudden a new bid appears (just one) that is a buck above mine with no time left, you have to be suspicious. There are a number of programs designed to do this.

I suppose things were different in the '50s and '60s where you needed to make do with what you could find locally. You know, when the stuff of hot rods and customs was less than 30 years old and readily available. That's the equivalent of finding parts today for a Chrysler K-car from the 80's.

I had to work twice as hard to afford a new "old" frame for my car because the shipping fees were almost as much as the frame itself. Yeah. That's a lot more fun than going to local swap meets.

-Stefan

 

I have bought from ebay for years now. Craigslist is also where I have found some things I have needed. I have also gone to garage sales and found things. Swap meets can be nice also. Friends still have been the best place for parts. I mainly trade or find something they need for what I need.

I have been sniped on ebay as you say for parts I really needed. I have also sniped people though at the last minute because I have gotten so pissed about being outbid 2 or 3 times in the last minute. I needed a part badly recently and that last scenario happened. From now on my bids go in at the last minute. I will not rely on some program to do the bidding for me but I will syncronize my watch to tell me times almost up if I need a part really bad again. I do not sell the parts I buy even though most I could turn a marginal profit on. I just wait for what I need to become available.

I concur that its no good when someone (ebay) corners a market and then plays dictator to the people who feed it. Monopolies suck plain and simple. I hope another avenue becomes available someday sooner then later.-Weeks

 

If you bid on anything before the last few seconds you are only screwing yourself. Never show your hand before you absolutely have to.

 

Well spoken. But when you wait until 2 minutes to go then get outbid by 2 different bidders in the last minute when the item saw only 5 bidders for 7 days it was listed you can feel kinda shorted.-Weeks

 

It will ALWAYS be a buck ahead of yours... That's the winner's minimum bid to win the auction, a dollar ahead of the runner up. It's automatic, not something the person does. If you bid $300 and the winner bids $400, the winning bid would always be $301 (or whatever the price interval is).

I bid in the last 30 seconds. People bidding before the last couple minutes are annoying, never win, and drive the price up. I'm not sure that I've ever lost one that ended in my price range. I'll bid so close to the end no one else will be able to even get a bid in.

 

I love E-bay and Craigslist, they make it easier to find the parts we need.Swap meets are great, but can't always make them.

 

Rule to live by, plus quite often some asshole will bid you up if you bid early just to see if you have set a higher max bid. I've often thought that might be the sellers buddy doing that for him just like a shill a live walk in auction.

As far as Paypal, I sell Paypal only screw the percentage and the idea of else might be getting rich with it. It beats the hell out of waiting to some clown decides to mail the check and then waiting for the check to clear the bank. Or send some screwy grocery store money order that my banker has never heard of and I have to wait for that to clear.

Ebay is great for selling oddball crap that you would never be able to sell at a swap meet or locally. I helped a buddy sell off a bin full of cop car take offs that all went for good prices and went all over the country.
There isn't a huge swap meet market for modern police car sirens but small town police departments and Sheriff's departments in counties with tight budgets sure like them.

Outside of the obvious crooks the Ebay sellers that tend to piss me off are the guys who buy up pretty decent project cars then sell them off one piece at a time at exorbanant asking prices. I saw that happen with an early Corvette last year. The car was listed and sold by one seller one week and sold and a couple of weeks later another seller had each and every piece including the body and chassis for sale seperately. One more cool and pretty well HAMB friendly car (283 powered) lost to the part it out for big bux syndrome.

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Well- I'm a snipe bidder but I have my maximum just like you do. I choose to show my hand 2 seconds before the end of auction instead of over a 7 day period.
I win some & loose some.
That gives me the upper hand over the guy who is watching the end of auction & keeps raising his max bet to the bitter end. He only wants to bid $400. 5 minutes to go & someone bumps his max bid & he's raising his bid again. If my max bid is higher than these auction watchers, I'll take the prize home.
With a snipe bid- I don't even watch the end. I place my max bid I would pay for that item & forget about it. I've been in Hawaii on vacation & won shit.
It's fair & legal. Highest price wins.

 

Absolutely snipe - it's the only way to go. You can't beat the automated sniping programs, however - they'll beat you every time, unless your max bid is really stupid high.

On the other hand, as a seller, I find it very entertaining to watch the last minute action.

 

I found my Merc online, and have bought parts for it off of eBay, HAMB, and some targeted searching (Studebaker hubcaps in Canada for example). My needs are specific and I don't have the time to hit swap meets.

I do agree that eBay needs some competition.

 

Ebay is simply a tool, a tool that works for me.

I can remember going to "salvage yards" as a kid only to be snubbed by the old men who owned them with their almost guaranteed response of "it's not for sale", or "well that one is $200.00, but I will let you have that one for $150.00" (as he points to a real POS worse than the one I had).

I don't need to waste my time with that crap... ebay and such has it's issues, (win some loose some), but at least I know what I am buying is for sale, and I don't have to KISS ASS to get it... (I hate kissing ass for personal gain!)

 

eBay did have competition at one time... Yahoo Auctions. They SUCKED and eBay creamed 'em. eBay was/is WAY nicer. Survival of the fittest!

Salvage yards are a comletely miserable experience around here. I mean MISERABLE! I agree, the guys that own these places think they're sitting on gold and are REAL assholes. And they just drag the shit in there, there's no rhyme or reason, they're all just overgrown clusterfucks. Anybody that thinks otherwise is welcome to come here and see, I'll give out tours of the shithole, muddy, overgrown places around here, they literally just pile cars up, half you can't even get to.

 

I hate to tell you this, but the guy next to me at the Syracuse Nats had some cash on him and bought at least three things on Friday he more than doubled his money on by the end of Saturday. I've done the same thing at other shows - in fact at the Nats I sold a heater I'd paid $5 for at another show for $25 and a radio out of a cluster I sold for $20 that a guy had thrown away at that same show. Probably half the stuff at the swap meet has been bought and sold by two other vendors before you buy it. And where did they get it to begin with? Estate auctions, garage sales, moving sales, etc. -

Swap meets are a lot of money for sometimes a low return on the dollars. And there's no rhyme or reason to it. I don't expect to get rich at them, but when I can go out and spend a day, load and unload my truck twice, spend $20 on a spot, $8 or $10 on food and $20 on gas, and only sell $30 of crap all day, staying home and selling two things on eBay for $30 after the fees starts to look a lot more attractive. And you never know with most of the local shows if you're going to sell $15 all day, or sell $150 (although I will never again go to the all-Ford show here, 2 out of three years were a waste of time). Maybe if more guys actually bought stuff at the swap meets, eBay would be less attractive to sell through.

I mean, I don't go out there and set up to be an old-car-parts charity or some shit. I think part of the problem anymore is somehow trying to make a decent buck for yourself has been turned into being evil and greedy. If I'm not making money, where am I going with it? There's no point for me to go out there and lose money. And if you think I should be throwing away money, then my price should be no problem for you, obviously unless you're a hypocrite it's no issue for you to throw your money away too.


In the end, buy where you like, but I have to tell you, those Stromberg 97 carbs I only sell on eBay. So if you want one, that's going to be the fastest place to find one. I know no one's going to give me the $125 for it at a swap meet.