eBay yet again

<forms orderly queue>

 

But you'll always be first Dave

 

You're right, I never bother and always use Bike Trader on the rare
occasion i'm selling a bike..

You seem to get a better class of timewasting mong through that ..

Paul.

 

Selling the Sprint ST was the first time I hadn't px-ed the current
bike for a new one, but after taking some advice on here, I put it up
on eBay. I was expecting a whole world of pain from the "ask a stupid
question" mongs, but sold it for a good price and with no issues
whatsoever.

Of course, I'd described it as fully and as accurately as possible and
put up plenty of decent pics.

I am firmly of the opinion that if one bids on an eBay auction or even
starts a dialogue with the seller of one that *hasn't* been fully
described, in good English (proper grammar like, and correct speeling),
and with plenty of pics then they deserve everything they get.

Avoid auctions written in stupid fonts, coloured fonts, any use of
TXT-spk, and any that describes the bike or car as a "she" and you
should be OK.

 

The difference, I think, is that Nige is always trying to get a bargain -
so he has to wade through the crap. Because one time in a thousand one of
those badly written ads will be for a bike in wonderful condition where
the owner is some kind of mechanical genius but who never actually likes
to ride the thing, yet is too illiterate to describe it properly and it
will go for a song.

 

Sure, but if he is willing to wade through 999 mong auctions to find
the single diamond, then he shouldn't keep coming on here and moaning
about them, should he?!

 

Non of the auctions i have looked at are bargains at all, in fact most are
above market value.

 

Sure, but going back to that auction for the Gixer Thou, alarm bells
should have been ringing from the time you noticed the font and colour,
the mis-spellings and the use of TXT-spk, and therefore just moved on.

It's not rocket science!

 

I guess the trouble is that when in 2008 everyone stopped using their
cheap credit to buy sportsbikes which they only rode at the weekend, the
supply of cheap second hand bikes to the top of the market dried up.

There probably are decent bikes out there: but the owners aren't selling
them because the price of a replacement bike has jumped up from around
6-7k to 10-12k. So everything floating around on ebay is just the rubbish
that no-one wants to hang on to.

 

While partial-illiteracy may make it a bit hard to communicate with
someone through a text-based medium, it doesn't mean they're a complete
****. Sometimes a phone call works wonders.

Need me to draw you a venn diagram covering "nice people" and "people
who can read and write properly" ?

 

There's also the issue that the Continentals have, indeed, been buying
cheap used bikes from the UK like there's no tomorrow. I thought this
game had ended, but it appears not.

But the basic law applies: if new sales dive, then there'll be fewer
used bikes available two or three years down the line, and so used
values will be higher. The motorcycle trade is cyclical and this has
happened twice before, while I've been riding.

 

Maybe not, but if someone uses TXT-spk in an eBay auction then I won't
bid/buy from them. End of.

I'm sure it does. Trouble is, they fell at the first hurdle.

As long as you include a set called "people who CT is prepared to buy
something from", sure.

I have enough grief from "proper" businesses and their so-called
"customer service" depts as it is, on a weekly basis at the moment.

I'm hardly going to start entertaining eBay mongs, which is only going
to increase mp BP even further.

 

I think it very much depends on what you're selling. I sold my Bandit
1250 through Ebay. Put it up on a classified ad there, 2 days later a
chap phones from Scotland offering me a couple of hundred under my
asking price. I decided it's a fair price, he flies down from
Scotland, pays off the balance of the loan on it using his debit card
over the phone to my finance company and gives me the difference in
cash to make it up to the agreed price. He rides back to Scotland
happy on the perfect bike for the trip.

But then, I was selling an immaculate 6 month old bike with a detailed
description and loads of ultra-high resolution pictures. Nige isn't
looking for that.

 

What stupid short sighted elitist fucking ignorant twaddle.

Given that 85% of the adult population of this country is functionally
literate and for that you can praise a teacher then blame the teachers for
failing to provide literacy to the other 15% and treat them like any other
cripple and take advantage of their disability for you own ends.

 

One man's "stupid short sighted elitist fucking ignorant twaddle" is
another man's "sensible policies for reducing the stress in one's life".

I understand the sentiment, but it doesn't work for me. It just brings
a whole world of pain into one's life, IME, so give them a wide berth.

 

But, you can have fun at thier expense Chris...

--


Nige,

'That's shot the fox'

Eunos Roadster (for summer)
Grand Cherokee (for winter)

 

I appreciate that some of them are just idiots, plain and simple but not
all and you should look to the information they are trying to convey and
judge by that and not by the way the way they spell it. If they get the
message across in a way that would make sense if spoken then ignore their
writing skills or lack thereof.

 

You got some pics then?