Buying from eBay for stock

[Grantlfc81 88]

Hi guys. Been out of the motor trade for about 12 years but have had heavy experiments in the past.

im finding it extremely difficult sourcing good stock.

ive seen some lovely vehicles on eBay that I could get cheaper than the advertised price and mark them up.

whats everyone else's thoughts on this and do you do it?

ive also seen say for example a Peugeot 207 - 2007 plate with 39k miles go for £400 because it needs a new gear box. I could get this repaired for less than 300, et it serviced and put it up for £2195 and clear lovely profit on it. What are our thoughts on this also?

All the best, Grant 

[andymc1973 199]

they wont be private sellers I bet

[Lakeside 94]

I’ve often wondered why dealers will pay so much for a car at auction when they can easily be picked up a lot cheaper privately, even get the added bonus of a test drive too.

[andymc1973 199]

laziness?

[Grantlfc81 88]

So I've seen a 207cc that is immaculate 57 plate ref 2008 - 59k Miles that I can get for £1600  on eBay -

i paid £1800 for the same car last month at auction and it needed An egr valve and sold for £2500 - 

the one on eBay I can see if it has any problems before I buy it and sell it for the same price...

I'm currently wondering why I'm even going to auction at present.

[Tom 164]

Yes it can be done but it can be hassle driving around peoples houses looking at cars only to find its junk, Auctions are all in one place for convenience. I have bought a few on ebay in the early days but its thin on the ground and mainly high mileage old junk or right offs. 

[andymc1973 199]

the car will be a traders car probs

[Tom 164]

8 minutes ago, andymc1973 said:

the car will be a traders car probs

Yeah "traders" Polish and Lithuanian 

[Grantlfc81 88]

I'm going to give this eBay a go and try and get a few decent cheap ones in.

the auctions seem to be full of overpriced rubbish as well. Unless you go up to fleet level and spend more money.

[andymc1973 199]

there are no free lunches, the cars will have other issues

[BHM 994]

The trade’s changed quite a lot over the years, in addition to the reputable Asian dealers you’ll no doubt remember from years ago you’ll now find we have the pleasure of hosting many Eastern European dealers on these shores. You’ll find the Romanian, Polish & Lithuanians, not to mention the Bulgarians, Latvians & the occasional Belarusian - let me categorically assure you that all of these nationalities have keenly embraced our traditional values of fair play & common decency in business.

You are virtually guaranteed a fair deal and they delight in offering first class cars at second class prices. They are particularly helpful to greedy, gullible trash expecting to ‘nick’ a cheap car & suddenly start trading for BIG BUCKS. However, due to language barriers occasionally you may find that a “Business” advertisement has been inadvertently uploaded as a “Private” advertisement. In order to circumvent this error you may find cars being sold on behalf of a friend/relative/neighbour/the-next-door’s-dog etc. and strange meeting places that look suspiciously like a knackered old unit on an industrial estate although, they are in fact the sellers private address (or should that be the other way round!?!!)

I’ve confused myself now so I’m off for a lie down. 

[justina3 518]

You have all ready answered your own questions, dont need us to tell you what to do. 

I used to buy a lot of minis of ebay with faults that people took to the main stealers and where bent over backwards for easy, fixes and stole loads of them, people are wise to it these days and long gone the abs sensor fault £54 fix when the stealers advised its a pump for over £1200.

 

 

[trade vet 703]

If you only need to buy 2 or 3 per week ,you can always buy good stuff privately.If you ring up private sellers,tell them you are a dealer and are polite to them ,it works.Just give them a ball park figure,wish them luck with their sale etc and tell them to give you a call if they get stuck.In my experience,it may take 3 weeks,but 10% of them will probably get back.

[Lakeside 94]

5 hours ago, andymc1973 said:

there are no free lunches, the cars will have other issues

And auction cars dont?

[Tom 164]

1 hour ago, Lakeside said:

And auction cars dont?

Most have mechanicals reports. BCA are best at this to be fair. Ive had refunds on cars with slipping clutches and knocking engines. 

[Arfur Dealy 823]

The types that buy crap, sell crap to those who buy crap. DYKWIM......

[Lakeside 94]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

Most have mechanicals reports. BCA are best at this to be fair. Ive had refunds on cars with slipping clutches and knocking engines. 

Yea they do but Bca assured covers less than you could test yourself buying private. If a car is cheap at auction I’ll buy it, but when I’m watching dealers bid £500 over cap clean + fee’s for an 8 year old focus that could be bought privately for a third of the price is stupid in my eyes.

[trade vet 703]

40 minutes ago, Lakeside said:

Yea they do but Bca assured covers less than you could test yourself buying private. If a car is cheap at auction I’ll buy it, but when I’m watching dealers bid £500 over cap clean + fee’s for an 8 year old focus that could be bought privately for a third of the price is stupid in my eyes.

It’s the big time operators that pay way over for stock,they know what they are doing.They need to buy huge volumes and it doesn’t matter if they pay too much.Their  finance and gap commission and volume bonus rates and other add ons  are huge earners for them compared with most dealers.They also usually nick the swappers and trade them for profit.It all comes out in the wash for them.

[D&M 66]

From our experience, we find sites like eBay/Gumtree/Facebook etc are just full of wannabe traders passing the same old crap around between themselves.

More often than not, if something looks cheap - it's knackered.

If a car is cheap at auction - there is probably a reason for that too.

We're quite rural, so it may be different for others but the auctions are good for convenience. We could spend hundreds of pounds in fuel and hours travelling to see private sellers - only to find the seller is a home dealer passing off as private and/or a scrapper.

We've also found that the quality of cars seems to go hand in hand with the cost of advertising.

Autotrader seems to find the most genuine sellers with honest cars / Gumtree private sellers and Facebook is the home traders and scrap / eBay a mixed bag. More crap than good.

 

At auction, we've had much more good luck than bad. We do as much homework as we can before going to auction, and on the day asking the auctioneer or the driver about the car. Being pleasant and polite to the auctioneer and the drivers when asking, we seem to get polite and honest responses to any questions.

[MrC 142]

Just keep to a 10 mile radius.

[Dealer 54]

1 hour ago, trade vet said:

It’s the big time operators that pay way over for stock,they know what they are doing.They need to buy huge volumes and it doesn’t matter if they pay too much.Their  finance and gap commission and volume bonus rates and other add ons  are huge earners for them compared with most dealers.They also usually nick the swappers and trade them for profit.It all comes out in the wash for them.

Bang on! 

[It's me 615]

21 minutes ago, MrC said:

Just keep to a 10 mile radius.

what if he lives by the sea though

will he sink or swim

[Mojo121 229]

There's the odd genuine car on eBay, but as others have said, do you homework. I think people are tighter for cash now than ever before so the idea of 'nicking' anything and marking it up is almost non-existent. Feedback, a phone call and HPI are all tools you should use to decide whether it's worth a bid or not!

[trade vet 703]

10 hours ago, MrC said:

Just keep to a 10 mile radius.

I have to disagree.If you want to be successfull buying from auctions but you don’t have the confidence to buy on line,you have to ‘get on your bike’.If you work at it,you will find auctions that regularly have the stuff you want.You may have to travel long distances but it pays dividends.I can think of one guy from Brighton who would buy Motability small autos in the North East.Then there was a North East guy who would only buy manual Motability stuff but needing paintwork from B/bushe etc.When you get it right,you can then just buy your stuff on line,it’s the best thing that has happened for us.

[grant8064 219]

Most of the junk in the block is far more genuine than most of the stuff I see on eBay, fbook etc. I reckon if I went through 100 social media and eBay adverts at random maybe 10% at most would be privates. 90% of it is wannabee traders, scrap boys and back street garages that have patched up a scrapper or are knocking out something terminal with only a pay as you go mobile to worry about.