Selling a bike

[the_priest]

I've advertised mine on FB. Get a question what my lowest price is, so I reply with the price I have advertised it at. They respond with a 1/3 off the price. Hmmm, hard of reading or just a chancer. Ive had a cash in hand offer from a forum member off NC700 for a lot more, so responded accordingly. They are not happy as they want to "do business". What think the masses of experienced sellers?

[the_priest]

Aha. Digging a bit deeper into the FB thing, looking at his FB Profile he is a seller of bike in Portugal. Interesting...

[Dodgy69]

Don't be offended by low offers, we all do it. Also try and sell in your home country. Always hassle with overseas, etc.

[the_priest]

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Trouble with FB it is a global thingy. But I am sticking to the UK sales only thing. I will update my advert to show that as well. Not offended, but intrigued that it was quite so low. To take a third off the value when it is well priced against other bikes of higher mileage and less goodies on them.

[G.P]

There's plenty of chancers out there. Sometimes, people need the cash asap and can't resist even though its far less than the item is worth.

I've got a friend who often calls sellers after Auctions have finished and very politely apologises he can't meet the reserve or whatever "but just in case you do want to consider it, I can offer you £xx into your account today" Sometimes he gets a bite and does very well out of it. USually on high end bikes or collectable sports cars.


You can't actually sell your bike until after lockdown is over anyway?

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I told someone to fuck off for offering me a quarter of what I wanted for a bike - he then came over all "lets do a deal" to which I also replied fuck off.

[erizo]

had the same kinda thing when i was selling a load of spares after shutting the shop.

i priced the parts more than fairly, and included "no offers" clearly in the ads, but still got a bunch of people asking "will you take half of what you ask?"

the missus couldn´t understand why i was getting pissed off and replying with "what part of "NO OFFERS" do you fail to understand?". she said "everyone haggles" to which i replied "then they can fuck off and haggle on ads that don´t say "NO OFFERS" because trying it on is fucking stupid".

honestly, trying to sell anything privately here in spain is like trying to sell something in fucking marrakesh!

[weeksy]

IT's not just Spain and not just bikes, it's anything and everything that's 'used'

We put the items up for more than we want, people offer less than the asking, that's just how it is.

It depends on how much above we start and how much below they offer as to whether there's a deal to be done.

In simple terms, do it as a classified with no offer function and away you go....

[RSW46]

When I sold my sv1000 I had it up for £2250, I got numerous phone calls from people offering £1500 who all got told no, but then one guy said he lived in Manchester, 300 odd miles away but he was interested for £2k which was reasonable to me. He said he would drive down in the morning and if he liked it he'd have it. Sure enough he turned up, handed me an envelope with £2k in it as he got out of the car, had a little look and went for a test ride, came back and said he'd take it. He was with me less than 10 mins! Moral of the story, get through the time wasters and a good buyer will come along eventually!

[DefTrap]

There's a million tv programs with 'experts' 'doing deals' with explanations of "this is what it's worth to me mate, you're talking retail" banter. Now everyone wants to do it, cos it looks easy. I don't think they get that most private vendors couldn't give a toss about what the buyer considers to be overheads.

[Gimlet]

When I sold my sv1000 I had it up for £2250, I got numerous phone calls from people offering £1500 who all got told no, but then one guy said he lived in Manchester, 300 odd miles away but he was interested for £2k which was reasonable to me. He said he would drive down in the morning and if he liked it he'd have it. Sure enough he turned up, handed me an envelope with £2k in it as he got out of the car, had a little look and went for a test ride, came back and said he'd take it. He was with me less than 10 mins! Moral of the story, get through the time wasters and a good buyer will come along eventually!

I use a combination of Auto Trader and MCN classifieds and ads on owners forums. I sold my KTM SMT that way. MCN are very good at filtering out scammers and their call centre is very helpful if you get a suspicious enquiry.

Serious buyers will often check forums as well as classified ads even if they're not members. If the seller is a well known contributor on a forum with a good social history and not just a on there to sell stuff they're probably genuine which encourages buyers. That's exactly what happened with the SMT. The buyer wasn't on the KTM forum but he had a mate who was. Satisfied that I was a genuine seller with a genuine bike he contacted me and said can I come and see is Saturday, I'll bring a trailer. Didn't make an offer over the phone.
I'd advertised it at £6100 knowing that was top whack because it had nearly 20,000 miles on it, though it had had it's 18K big service (990 KTMs are pretty cheap to service) but it also had a lot of extras and it was thoroughly sorted. In the end I took £5800 which at the time was what stock bikes with half the miles were getting so I was perfectly satisfied.

FB may be free if you're a member but it's a minefield of arseholes and time wasters. Trusted online bike classifieds backed up with owner's forums are the best way IMO. It costs a bit but it's worth it and in any case you don't want to advertise the same bike for too long. If it isn't selling take it off and wait, then put it back on again with a new set if pictures. If the same ad stays up for ages people assume the bike hasn't sold because there's something wrong with it rather than just a weak market and it puts people off.

[DefTrap]

Serious buyers will often check forums as well as classified ads even if they're not members. If the seller is a well known contributor on a forum with a good social history and not just a on there to sell stuff they're probably genuine which encourages buyers. That's exactly what happened with the SMT. The buyer wasn't on the KTM forum but he had a mate who was. Satisfied that I was a genuine seller with a genuine bike he contacted me and said can I come and see is Saturday, I'll bring a trailer. Didn't make an offer over the phone.
I'd advertised it at £6100 knowing that was top whack because it had nearly 20,000 miles on it, though it had had it's 18K big service (990 KTMs are pretty cheap to service) but it also had a lot of extras and it was thoroughly sorted. In the end I took £5800 which at the time was what stock bikes with half the miles were getting so I was perfectly satisfied.

I -didn't- buy a bike I later recognised from a marque-specific forum - because the owner had been rather lazy with the history (i.e. claimed it had been his forever whereas in fact it had been tracked, modified, raced by his 18yo son and then returned to standard for sale). I liked the bike as it happened, it was fine (and I know where it ended up and the new owner seemed happy enough), but it soured the deal that he was prepared to fib about it.

So, yeah, asking a load of questions and a bit of research does no harm.

[erizo]

There's a million tv programs with 'experts' 'doing deals' with explanations of "this is what it's worth to me mate, you're talking retail" banter. Now everyone wants to do it, cos it looks easy. I don't think they get that most private vendors couldn't give a toss about what the buyer considers to be overheads.

Not only that, the vast majority of people are buying items for their own use, not for resale, so to expect someone to take a lowball offer as if there is some kind of profit margin involved is really taking the piss.

Even if they are buying for resale, their profit margin is not my problem, and if I say in an ad “no offers” it means exactly that.

I’d rather wait longer and get the (fair) price I was asking for than sell to some piss taking chancer.