chrisalmighty

Would anyone consider selling your used road bikes to someone for cash at 80% of what it goes for on eBay, in order to not to sell it yourself (advertising, dealing with customers, shipping, worrying about getting paid, etc.)?

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

SpongeDad

Depends on how the transaction is structured.

80% of projected price upfront, sure; 80% of actual price after the fact, what's the point.

urban_assault

And what will your cut be? 20%?

dekalbSTEEL

80% sounds like a good deal compared to this place:

https://www.i-soldit.com/fees.asp

recneps345

I was thinking about this today. I started biking a little over a year ago. I bought a mtn bike first. Right after that, I decided to start road biking. I have never even taken the mtn bike out on a trail once. I got my Lemond and the Trek mtn bike has sat in my garage for over a year. I just dont have the time to sell it. I might use this soldit.com to help me out.

alxra

No, unless you are willing to take a loss. The margins are too small in the cycling business to automatically take 20% off the top.

mrt10x

I dont get it.. Ebay selling is so simple.. seriously grand total to sell and ship a bike from beginning to end should be like one hour. Have your LBS box and ship the bike for you, they will want like 50 or 60 bucks for that.. still way cheaper than a 20% fee. Dont be intimidated.. its simple.

cs1

When I was an active seller on ebay, power seller until 2003, figure that 10% of every transaction would be eaten up with fees. If the buyer used a CC with PayPal then another 3-5%. Now if you minus that 10%-13% off of market value that leaves the seller with a whopping 7%-10% profit. So taking 20% off market value is fair. The reseller isn't going to get rich on that.

Tim

alxra

Good point.


Why'd you stop powerselling?

telenick

+1

EURO

I like the process.

mrt10x

well i figure a guy selling a bike isnt going to be selling that many items, and therefore would not have to pay the extra fees that powersellers pay iin order to make their lives easier.

I figure that Ebay takes their small cut, I always specify on the sale that if you use PP credit card feature, the buyer pays the extra %, and I say that buyer pays all shipping costs. $1500 bike example (a nice median cost?) Ebay insertion fee $4.80, Reserve fee $15 bucks/1% because most bikes are over $200, $.25 fee for buy it now because im impatient, no picture fee because one good pic is enough, and more can be sent via email. Ill even throw in the $20 bucks a LBS might charge to pack the bike up if you dont have the time to do it yourself, although I would probably include that in shipping costs (shipping costs are a great way to cover expenses by the way) I clear around 93.5% on a $1500 bike. Even with that packing cost out of my pocket I spend $75.67 in ebay fees and other costs, and I clear $1423.33 or 95%. Ill keep that $224.33 that you would charge me thank you very much.

Again the key is to pass all the costs to the buyer you can, PP fees, shipping and packing fees, those two areas are where inexperienced Ebayers loose money as sellers.

cs1

Good question, I got a real job and didn't have time to do the work. I was heavy into collectible pocket knives. I listed about 100 a week. I didn't use Andale or any other service so I did everything manually with Excell. It was lots of fun but a lot of work. I spent all weekend at Gun/Knife shows trying to buy collections. If you are doing bikes you would have to spend lots of time hunting down bikes to strip or resell also. Add that to the time it takes to track and ship. It really becomes a full time job. I do miss it sometimes though. Ebay has really changed the way we buy and sell things.

Tim

cs1

It's obvious that you didn't major in business. If you didn't pay anything for the bike you cleared 93.5% Minus all the ebay fees from the cost of the bike to figure out profit. If your bike selling price minus the fees is more than you paid for the bike you made a profit. ie on the imaginary bike: you paid $1000 and sold it for $1500. Now minus the fees, $75.67 which leaves $424.33 profit. If not you lost money. Add the value of your time into the equation and you probably didn't make any money. Always try to approach selling like a business and you'll get burned less.

Tim

mrt10x

well there Skippy I did major in Business, and I have an MBA as well. Furthermore I currently manage the entire aviation inventory budget for the Navy/Marine Corps, which is around 15billion dollars. Well that could be a negative for my abilities to add I guess.

But back to the point. The original cost of the bike is irrelevant in our discussion. It is a sunk cost. We were discussing the cost recovery rate of reselling something on ebay, so in purely technical terms, the word profit is incorrect. However, for the unwashed masses it made the most sense. So in an effort to recover as much cost as possible I want to minimize my outlay of selling expenses. The selling cost of the bike 1500 is your cost recovery rate. Subtract all the costs of selling the bike from that rate and you have what I called "profit." Subtract all fees from that and I keep 1423.33 in my pocket. Remember your SAT's now, 1423.33x100/1500=94.8888888888 which I rounded up to 95%. That is significantly better than the 80% "profit" I would keep in my pocket through the reseller, well 224.33 better to be exact, 300-75.67=224.33. Ill give you a gold star if you can figure out where the 300 came from?

Now as a power seller you were talking about selling/turning new/used items at a 20% margin, as I figure from your example of 10-13% fees leaving 7-10% profit. Well that just does not apply to a cost recovery rate transactioin, which is what reselling a bike is. Bottom line is that you were selling apples, and we were talking about oranges.

I approach everything like a business and get burned,,, never.

recneps345

cs1 just got punked!

mrt10x

sorry didnt mean to punk.. although it does sound that way.. well maybe i meant to punk..but now I feel bad.. you know us military.. attack attack attack. Really think that we were just talking apples and oranges

rookiet

i think what it boils down to is .. The bike owner that has had his mtb setting in the garage for a year is taking a loss on that bike .. so at that point any profit from selling the bike is going to be money that he/she would not have had otherwise .. just my 2 cents

alxra

I thought by definition, a sunk cost is NOT recoverable, thereby making it irrelevant. Like the cost of a dinner you've already consumed and paid for. Or grease/oil you've already applied to your drivetrain. The way you've defined sunk cost above, that would make the COGS for any business irrelevant, unrecoverable, and sunk. If that was so, you could not calculate Gross or Operating Profit on the Income statement or anything below that including the Net Profit.

If you still have the asset which incurred the cost, in this case the bike, can't you recover at least some, if not all the cost, making it relevant to the decision?

mrt10x

Right the sunk cost is the difference between the original cost of the bike, and the recapitalized dollars obtained through the cost recovery rate transaction. Again, I probably was not exact enough in my post.

chrisalmighty

It would be 80% up front. The benefit in such a service would be that the bike owner would get cash, albeit less, and have to expend as little effort as possible, aka no advertising, customer service, shipping, packing, or risk taking.

So, I guess the real question is, how much is your time worth? In the case of the $1500 bike example, is giving up the $300 (or $224 post fees) more you'd get by selling it yourself worth the hassle of taking pictures, tuning the bike, cleaning the bike, listing it, answering buyer questions, waiting a week for the auction to end, waiting to see if you get paid, taking it to a bike store, and then shipping it off to what you hope is a satisified customer.