I signed into eBay back on November 15, 1998 a little over 20 years ago. Back then, eBay was only a few years old and the site was mainly a classified ad.
Being new to the site and being 35 years old, I noticed the occasional car for sale on the site as well. I decided that I could do better and built a shop, car lot and went into the business. I fell into the Volvo business, and added Mercedes, BMW, Saab and some others back in the day. Looking back, I had the time of my life!
There were many happy buyers and I just kept the ball rolling. As I participated in this forum, I made a few enemies and being so brash I can understand why I rubbed people. I suppose that when you have success at that age, you feel pretty good about yourself and don't mind letting people know about it. However, the business continued to grow.
As time went on, I noticed a trend with eBay buyers. They wanted more and more for less and less. They were also quick to threaten negative feedback if they didn't get their way. I took a few knocks over the years and it probably bolstered my position as a seller since anyone selling 10+ year old cars is probably going to have some unhappy customers. Yeah, I had a few and it didn't bother me as long as the remarks were truthful. In a few cases where they weren't truthful, I did something about it.
Back in 2016 we started moving product off eBay and I paid my last eBay invoice in June 2017. What I noticed was that the sell-through rate had deteriorated to the point that you had to list a car three or four times, maybe more, to make a sale. At $90 per 21 day listing, the cost added up. I had a few cars where eBay made more than I did. So, I made the move completely away from eBay.
Since that day, I've had some offers from eBay and a few free listings. None of them produced a sale. As people search through cars, there is always something cheaper and in disrepair and I don't sell that kind of product. So, with that, I bid farewell to eBay.
There was always the threat of negative feedback on eBay as well. No matter how careful you were as a seller, how much detail that you put into a car, down to new wiper blades, there was always that customer who wanted more for nothing. Leveraging feedback for cash back became a growing concern.
Today I am still involved, but not very active in the business. I have someone who runs things and does quite well. We have been invited back several times but no thanks, it is simply too expensive.
So, things have come full circle. Now we are back to selling through other means of relatively inexpensive advertising and have good results. We have repeat customers and seem to draw people from out of state even though we are no longer selling on eBay. So, until the eBay platform changes, we will not be listing cars here.
I have learned much in 20 years and the vehicles are becoming more reliable, more long-life and more complex. As a result, the values of used cars are dropping because there are so many in the market. It is a saturated market and any dealer who has his inventory financed is at risk of losing his business.
I've never owed anyone a dime in the car business. There was no reason to make a bank rich by doing a floorplan when my own cash could make it work at virtually no cost. It is not like cash earned much interest anyway, so any lost interest was more than made up by the costs that were avoided by floorplanning.
To all of you, thank you for your support and attention over the years.
