eBay Motors is a great site. Although our resident sharp end guy Steven Lang has, uh, moved on, he still reckons there's no better gauge of a car's worth than the completed items section. And these guys are serious about providing a safe place to buy and sell an automobile over the internet– an inherently dicey proposition. As Automotive News [sub] reports, eBay has 2k– count 'em two thousand– staffers who "handle complaints and investigate sham auctions and dishonest sellers." OK, now, in February, eBay announced they were going to list GM's Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles (CPO) on the site. All sorts of alarm bells went off. Knowing GM as we do, it seemed obvious that eBay would make it difficult (if not impossible) for consumers to cross-shop the price of these CPO-mobiles against the same cars sold independently. To its discredit, eBay still refuses to provide details of the agreement. In fact, eBay now says they're talking to "other automakers" about replicating the deal. We call on eBay to disclose enough information about this arrangement to reassure its base– the hundreds of thousands of people who buy cars via the service– that eBay's not going to sell the end users down the proverbial river by firewalling CPO and non-CPO vehicle sales.
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I’m not to sure about that deal. For a Chevy – eBay isn’t worth it b/c of the distance you have to travel to see the car. Plus they oversold so many cars that locally you can get them cheap of Craigslist (the deal site). I’m selling my Porsche right now on eBay b/c I know it will get the best price. If I tried to sell it locally I wouldn’t get anywhere near the money. So eBay works for sellers with cars that are in demand but not for vehicles dumped from fleets with CPO’s stamped on them.
So how would they prevent cross-shop comparisons? If I were looking for, lets say, a 2006 Malibu, and did a search, would it only return private buyers? Would I have choose private or CPO? What is to prevent me from doing two searches, one of each.
My point is, even if GM et. all, wanted to keep eBay bidders from comparing prices against the private market, they couldn’t. There are simply too many good tools and techniques out there that make this possible.
This is about as dumb as Hollywood’s instance on onerous DRM for digital media that does nothing to prevent piracy and only punishes legitimate paying customers.
Well, it the seller who pays eBay’s fees. They are the customer, and the customer is always right. So eBay may have to do this. And the customer will discover that eBay doesn’t work for them (with these restrictions) and call the whole idea a failure.
I have 2 good friends who work for an eBay Motors affiliate company headquartered in Florida. The higher up of the 2 tells me eBay has had no growth for the better part of 2 years and is in some trouble. He’s offline at the moment but I will inquire within and report back any relevant info.
H
I would definitely agree with that statement. The ‘Ebay’ market has fizzled out with a lot of dealers for a variety of reasons. The time and resources needed to post a single vehicle, the difficulty of financial recourse if the buyer decides to walk, and most of all…. money.
Ebay Motors always seems to be on an eternal upward fee basis. That cost basis is more than twice as much as Autotrader ($49 or less) or Craigslist (free). In fact, if Craigslist decided to perform some basic steps to ensure a reputable seller (Carfax reports, feedback tally, etc), they would probably have the core of Ebay’s business.
I haven’t posted on Ebay for well over a year now. That may change, but other than selling the truly rare and unique (or highly valued), Ebay has virtually no competitive advantage.
TTAC, eBay Motors may be a handy place to run comps, but there’s never been a better candidate for a Deathwatch series. Talk about a company that had it all – goodwill, market share, growth – and has spent years doing nothing but mismanage themselves into oblivion.
I have no doubt that eBay growth is flat as another poster commented. The only source of revenue increases has been to raise selling fees again and again (without providing any new services, and on the rare occasion they do, they add another fee).
Several months ago, I logged in to find that I’d been specially selected to try out the new eBay Motors beta. That’s great, I thought, they have finally redesigned it. I struggled to search for about 15 minutes only to encounter numerous bugs and missing functionality (it was a beta, after all). So I decided to switch back to the regular eBay Motors until they fixed everything. Except I couldn’t. After digging through the help files for 5 minutes I found a notice saying the only way to get the working site back was to clear my cookies. As web usability goes this is like throwing your users into a snake pit with instructions on how to build a ladder.
I am not sure that this will be any different from Autotrader who makes you choose from a “Certified” car search or a “used” car search.
That way you have to perform 2 searches to compare certified and non-certified vehicles.
Of course with tabbed browsing, this is not that much of a hassle.
Still shame on eBay for not realizing that the true customer is not the seller but the buyer.
While it is obvious that the seller pays the fees they will only do so until the buyers stop going to eBay because a more user friendly site has come up.
Of course in this whole lot – it is Cars.com that has lost the most.
They had the best domain and squandered it. There search is horrid and there partnerships are anemic.
I used to do a lot of business selling and some buying on ebay. Now I often go for months without doing a transaction there.
IMO the problem has been ebay’s Growth At Any Cost mindset which has led them to go for listing volume at the expense of listing quality.
There is also the been there, done that fad phenomenon. The first time you duke it out in a snipping war to get that widget in the final second of the auction it is fun, but the thrill wears off. I know from experience.
I’m reminded of the old Yogi Berra line: “Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.”
For buying and selling cars, Craigslist is the venue of choice these days.
Everyone is catering to the Certified Pre Owned phenomenon to assist manufacturers in bolstering the eroding values of lease returns.
There’s a new kid in town the “Certified Pre Owned” lets all jump on the band wagon of the new kid.
Its not what the Certified Pre Owned sells for, its what the manufacturers offer franchised new car dealers as incentives to buy a used vehicle from its captive finance company and turn it into a Certified Pre Owned to the detriment of everyone else that is not a franchised new vehicle dealer.
To repeat yankinwaoz’s question: what is the mechanism by which you expect they will prevent cross-shopping?
eBay has 2k– count ’em two thousand– staffers who “handle complaints and investigate sham auctions and dishonest sellers.”
hmmm… there must be a whole shitload of complaints, sham auctions, and dishonest sellers to justify hiring 2000 employees. my limited experience with ebay has been dismal. and with autotrader, if you include your phone number you will be PLAGUED by ass…e brokers who call you endlessly trying to sell your car for you. as another member noted, Craigslist is awesome- it’s free, you don’t get pestered to death by brokers, and it works.
Agree with the sentiment about eBay losing it’s value. Most of my purchases/sales are in pro audio and music gear. The selection is still top notch and there are great values to be had if you pay attention. But Craigslist is putting a hurt on the ‘bay, even if they do own a chunk. And newspaper ads… Almost finished.
I really like Craigslist, but I HATE what it’s doing to locally owned newspapers. Luckily, Eugene still has a local rag that I find mostly reputable. The Oregonian is no longer the same since being swallowed up by a company in another state. The ads for music gear have gone from dozens per day to often times zero. Cars, the same.
So, eBay for the high ticket items, buying and selling, Craigslist for everything else.
/end of threadjack
ebay would be better siding with the consumer if it’s looking to have any growth at all.
Small buyers and sellers will be loyal to ebay; the large sellers will be ditch ebay in a heartbeat if they could make another dollar on a deal.
I still use eBay a bit for comparison values, but I’m not even sure that it can give you a “real” price. Case in point – while searching for a toy for my wife, I won 2 auctions for Mini Coopers last year, and in both cases the sellers refused to sell at the “winning” price. One claimed it wasn’t enough money, and the other claimed not to understand the “no reserve” policy. Both vehicles were relisted (as “no-reserve” auctions) within a week. I filed the obvious eBay complaint, but nothing came of it – I certainly didn’t hound eBay about doing something about it, I just went elsewhere to find the car.
My point is that there are 2 “winning” prices for cars, but neither actually sold – while this might tell you what the market is prepared to pay (on eBay), it might not be completely valid. (I should mention that in both cases the sellers were only looking for an extra $1k – it’s not like the bidding ended 10k below their proverbial limit).
ebay autos is a pain in the ass. I tried setting up a sale on it and gave up in frustration at the long long forms and the hidden fees that kept popping up.
@ H Man-
One of our local radio stations has teamed up with the local papers and runs a classifieds website.
It’s like a fancy craigslist- well modulated/policed, easy to use, and it gets enough traffic to make it viable as a sale/purchasing tool.
“Newspaper” ads are only dead where newspapers and advertisers failed to embrace change.
I find eBay motors too frustrating to use when shopping for a local ‘regular’ car.I can find local cars easier with a host of other methods.
Since I have an interest in ’60’s-’70’s AMC Javelins (AMX and Hornets too, etc.), It’s useful for those searches, but rarely do you see or get the deals you did several years back.
Plus, like the post-er who complained about the Mini auctions, I had a similar experience with a Firebird Formula, and that put me off of eBay Motors completely. In fact, I rarely ever even view eBay at all anymore. Most of the stuff I want to find is on craigslist.
I thought I’d mention this here. There is an online tool called Craig’s Helper that allows you to easily search across Craiglist regional servers for an item. I found it handy when I was shopping all over California for my Volvo. Also handy for casting a wider net for hard-to-find items.
Anyhow… great when looking for a used car.
I can’t imagine shopping on eBay for a “normal” car. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful it exists for the niche car market (where else can an LA resident shop for my Palm Beach car so easily?), and the escrow and shipping help.
But if I’m looking for a daily driver…eBay? Nope…
eBay for car sellers has always been an expensive and altogether below-average experience. Myself and a few friends have tried to sell cars on eBay (common vehicles) and had no luck. Most of the time the car gets bid up to 2/3 of it’s street value and then ends. Later you get tons of emails asking if you’d part with it for the last bid price + $500. No thanks.
And searching for cars on eBay ended a long time ago for me. Too many “featured” cars that are way overpriced and too little info to make me feel comfortable enough to put in a bid.
Speaking of sites that have gone downhill, Autotrader recently did an “improvement” to their site that has just ruined it. Now they have no car info, no technical info, just a little two-line blurb from the seller and that’s it. Totally useless. I used to surf Autotrader every day. Since they changed their format I haven’t been back.
Craigslist has become the best way to find deals. Jaxed.com also has a parts search engine for all of craigslists accross NA.
I have sold one vehicle (’49 Chevy p/u) and bought one vehicle (’97 VW Cabrio) via eBay Motors. I have also bought and sold another 40+ items.
All in all eBay has served it’s purpose for me but it is no longer the only tool in the shed so they are going to feel the pinch. I like Craigslist but there is not a board for my small town. We do have a regional board called GoLSN.com that everyone I know frequents. With that website I sold a bunch of little stuff in 24 hours without a problem.
I find the whole eBay business model to be too detached. I mean when I put a Ford 289 V-8 on auction last week and the buyer never responded there is not an operator to call and complain to and filing an electronic compliant is not allowed for 7 days even though my auction requires some sort of communication within 48 hours.
If the auctions were free I would not care but by using the auction site fees are charged and a real live person to talk to to resolve a problem would be nice. I realize of course that with the number of auctions passing through their servers their staff would be huge.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say here except that I have used them many times and some were large transactions but the thrill has worn off. I’m likely to use them again but also keep my eyes open for another option.
As for buying cars from eBay (non-collector cars) – I’m more inclinded to use a super-dealer like CarMax where I can go and SEE and DRIVE the car I want and I’ll be happier with used car pricing.