Wow. After finishing writing the “Step 2″ post, I went over to eBay Motors to check out the listing and, much to my surprise, I found that the bidding had already started!!!

As I am typing this, about 20 hours after Gemma went live on eBay Motors, the price has gone from $397 to $600! There have been 4 bidders and there are presently 5 watchers:

The current high bidder has emailed my asking for a Buy It Now price (I emailed him back, telling him that I had thought about this, but couldn’t decide on a price, and asked him to make an offer), and I got a strange automated phone call from a broker who is interested in selling Gemma for me! This is happening awfully fast… I had not anticipated so much activity so soon!

As you can see, I started onto “Step 3: Manage Your Listing” of the eBay Motors “How to Sell a Vehicle” guide before I even had a chance to read this step in the guide.

Step 3 comes in two parts, of which the first is “Actively Participate in the Process”. This part encourages the seller to be accessible and reach out to potential buyers. As I stated above, I have already had contact with two potential buyers. First, I received an email from the current high bidder asking if I had a Buy It Now price, to which I responded once and will check in with again if I don’t hear back from him. Then, I received an automated phone call from a broker at the end of which I left my name and number, thereby indicating that I am interested in talking to them.

The second part tells you how to “Revise Pricing”. So, given the inquirey I had received from the current high bidder about a Buy It Now price, I looked into how and under what circumstances I could add in a Buy It Now price. I found that I can add in a Buy It Now price at anytime, as long as it is above the current high bid, which makes sense.

This part also deals with how to “Revise Your Item”. So, I took this as an opportunity to look over Gemma’s listing again now that it was live and compare it to some of the other live listings. I hadn’t expected that I would want to change anything… but, I did.

I had thought that the eBay vehicle return policy (namely that all vehicles are sold “as is where is” with no warranty or returns unless otherwise stated) would be listed clearly in the listing itself. However, I was surprised that under the part of the listing with “return policy” in the title, no return policy was listed.

When I looked at some of the other cars listed I saw that they had included this information in the vehicle description. So, I got on the live chat with eBay again and asked why. I was informed that this was for parts and accessories (I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have a clearly listed policy for cars too, but moving on…), so I asked if the eBay vehicle return policy was “as is where is” with no warranty or returns etc. etc., and I was informed that it was indeed. I asked if and how I could include this information now that Gemma’s listing was live and was told that I could add something onto the end of the vehicle description, which I promptly did. I added the following: “Sorry to state the obvious, but Gemma is sold “as is where is” with no warranty or returns.” To be fair to eBay Motors, this information is scattered throughout the listing and the eBay Motors site, but I just wanted it to be clear… now it is.

(continued in Selling “Gemma” - Step 4: Complete the Sale)