I know its been covered before , but surely when you are seriously trying to sell your car why not give it decent exposure. A poor single 3/4 rear picture and 3 lines of description with a mobile number will entice zero response and you wonder why!!! Ok so you are in separation mode with your partner and need to cash up so a high price and poor advertising make the car worth a lot less perhaps, and she says keep the ***** car ,I don't know what's up. But a little more effort to display your ride on here will cost you zero zilch nada, thanks to Ryan, (and hopefully you are an alliance member to support the HAMB ) if you are serious about selling.
The auction site is the place to go for the largest amount of exposure. Just make sure that on your listing you state the car is for sale locally and you reserve the right to discontinue the listing at any time. This avoids any listing fees to the auction site. Very rarely will any cars meet the reserve price as everyone is afraid they will pay too much. After the auction period ends your phone will ring off the hook. Gary
...........I hesitated to respond here as you say, it's been covered before. It's just a pet peeve of mine that some people haven't a clue about "marketing" their car in its' best light. How long does it take to vacuum all of that dirt,pebbles, etc. off of the carpet or ditch those fast food wrappers on the back seat or that wad of towels in the trunk??!! Seriously, do sellers give no thought to this? ...Rant over.
You can waste a lot of time trying to buy a car or truck on an auction site. First off they put a reserve that is out of site and then have all their buddies bid on it till it get close to the reserve and hope some idiot makes the last bid and owns it. Plus they say that it is for sale locally and when you contact them and ask how much is the price locally they blow smoke up your *** that someone is interested in it and won't give you a price. Auction sites are a waste of time, plus not always an honest description. Gee I feel better already today.
uncleandy, I disagree with your statement that auction site cars for sale ads are a waste of time. They get the greatest amount of exposure with NO cost to the lister. I've sold several cars as a result of their listings. If it doesn't cost you anything for the listing? How can you possibly go wrong? How can you lose? Please tell us in a post that makes sense. Gary
My opinion most important thing is to be honest with the buyer. I have driven long distance to buy and been extremely disappointed let alone pissed off. Last car I sold on line sight unseen I told the buyer the frame was not pinched and it was, I didn't know it. when I ordered the ch***is I didn't order it that way. What i'm trying to say is I felt extremely bad and I'm sure the buyer was disappointed.
Jalopy Joker, surprised you could only think of two other sites for free cars for sale listings. Sites I've used that will list your car for free are Chevy Talk, 348-409, Racing Junk, Facebook, Tri 5.com and eBay. Hope this answers your question. If I can be of further ***istance please let me know. Gary
Good topic. Being in the market for a car right now this really hits home for me. I'll give a good example. There is a 40 Ford Tudor for sale in the cl***ifieds. The ad only has a few pictures, so I messaged the guy and asked if he had more, and gave him some specific area's I wanted to see. He asked for my email, which I gave, but apparently the pictures are too large to get through my email server (10 meg max attachment allowed), so I got maybe 2 additional pictures. We corresponded back and forth a few times, but if he was going to be this difficult to deal with I wasn't interested. I dropped it. Dude, don't send ME the pics, POST THEM IN YOUR ADD YOU BIG DUMMY!!! Did it occur to you that other people might be wanting to see them too? Fer crying out loud.....
Another tip for seller's, it's a buyers market right now. Guys, your pricing it too high! I realize you think you have a cool car and it's worth X dollars, but you're not being realistic. I've been watching cars sit for months, and get relisted repeatedly, or the ads get bumped repeatedly for months. I've seen cars listed in the local Craigslist for over a year. They just keep reposting the same stupid pictures leaving the price the same. HELLO!!! IT'S NOT SELLING! YOU MIGHT NEED TO CHANGE SOMETHING IN YOUR AD, OR THE PRICE, OR BOTH!!!! Seriously, it's priced too high. Drop it and it might move. Take some good pictures, lot's of them. Host them on a free site somewhere and post a link in your ad. Videos of the car running are great, but don't play some stupid music, we want to hear the car start and run, we don't want to hear some deep track from your punkabilly collection.
Well GMan your talking as a seller and not a buyer. How many cars have you bought on there site? I've sold cars on there too. I have also tried to buy cars on there and there are a bunch of strokers listing cars. All you have to do is go to the bids and see how much percent they bid on the sellers, that tells the whole story. All they do is give the site a bad name for the real people who want to sell their cars.
Here is a little tip I learned from a friend recently I will p*** along. When listing your car on Craigslist don't forget to add search words. In most ads there is a box for search words (including the HAMB) to help direct traffic to your ad or thread, however there is no such option on a CL ad. So here is the fix, after your text is satisfactory skip down a couple of lines and type "Search words" and then the words you desire separated by commas. Add two lines of descriptive words and be creative, remember to add stuff you would take on trade like corvette, Harley, fastback, hemi and so on in addition to the actual descriptive words of your car if you run out of ideas. Example: 1932 Ford, roadster, henry ford steel, high boy, flathead, semi shiny paint, wire wheels, stewart warner gauges, $85,000 search words, ford, highboy, roadster, coupe, hot rod, cl***ic, flathead, hemi, v8, convertible, traditional, pre war, street rod, original, henry ford, offenhauser, Navarro, Stromberg, hamb friendly. Make sure everyone sees your ad that does a search.
I have sold a few cars here on the Hamb and I can attest to the fact that you should post as many photo's as possible and by all means be truthful about the car you are selling. The exposure on the Hamb is a targeted market with 1057681 members so if you are selling a hamb friendly style car you couldn't ask for better odds. And by all means,if you sell the car join the alliance as a thank you to Ryan for offering the free cl***ifieds. HRP
Well said, Danny. Nothing galls me more than to see someone log on here simply to sell stuff using the free ads and can't bother to at least join the Alliance.
I've learned, the sellers with vague descriptions are usually hiding something and playing games. Never have I gone to look at a vehicle for sale (that includes O/T vehicles as well) that was what the seller claimed it was. You'd be surprised how many things the seller "forgot" to or "meant to" mention to you before you drove hours to see the vehicle, and pics don't always show everything. Both buying and selling can be a nightmare.
I'd love to post pictures for the cars I have advertised as I have nothing to hide. After all the years I have been on the HAMB I have never figured out how to post pictures? Several people have attempted to walk me thru it but with no success. I'm a ch***is builder and never claimed to know a dam thing about a computer!
Or the reverse, I'm an alliance member that forgot to list his car on the free HAMB cl***ifieds until I read this thread today. What a maroon!
uncleandy 65, isn't this thread ***led "Selling Your Hot Rod"? Don't see anything mentioned about buying until you brought it up. Gary
Don't sell yourself short,I am well aware of the quality of your work and since the last up date of the hamb the photo posting is amazingly simple. Here is Ryans tutorial and with easy to follow directions with pictures you will be posting with the best of them. HRP Photo tutorial
..............Hope he gives it another try. I know his work is top-notch as well. Surely would like to see pictures in his ads.
I'm guilty of this , but I figure if someone is slightly interested, or would like more information, they can call .I can do better over the phone. I reckon I need to upgrade my add lol. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Poh has a good point on information sharing over the phone. Thats why I always include my cell number on my for sale ads. Besides someone slightly interested can become very interested after learning more details. Gary
Adds with phone number is what I like. I'd much rather call and ask questions, figure if they are serious to sell there is a number. If I have to email respond its a one time deal with my number. No call back, I'm done...
Sending photos by email can be a problem. Weather you use a cell phone or a full digital camera, the photos are always very large in inches and MB's storage space. You should always edit the photos in a photo-editing software (such as Photoshop) and after editing, the photos could be reduced from MB's in size to KB's, therefore a JPEG format photo at about 350KB's in size can be sent by email as well as perhaps another 15 photos in the same email and it should make it through to the next person.
As mentioned by a few. Be HONEST in your description of the car. I look over the ads on the Hamb & find many are way overpriced for what they are selling. Maybe just looking for a ****er
There is an posting on here at present for a conversion coupe . It shows the front view of a 32 of some sort, scroll through and there is a picture of a pickup cab grill and hood, the new roof section of a coupe in a cardboard box and a messy pic of some rear quarters stashed in a corner. So what has the pickup got to do with it? After a PM , apparently it's to convert a 4 door into a coupe. The pictures sure don't display that idea. It's all about marketing and baiting the hook, preferably with something to make you want to know more with good info. if you choose to follow up. But some don't get it and fail to figure out why the phone doesn't ring offering cash.
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