Road Selling Advice.. ;-)

neeb

I've just justified some extravagant purchases to myself on the basis that I'll have a clear-out of the stuff it's replacing, as well as other things I've ended up accumulating but haven't used in a while..

I've usually used ebay in the past for this sort of thing but the fees these days are a rip off.

Wondering how people have got on with different methods of selling and how they have compared to ebay, particularly the BR classified ads but also other avenues such as the Cycling Weekly classifieds, local club forums, etc.

The biggest hassle for larger items (I have a frameset and wheels I want to sell, amongst other stuff) is packaging and delivering it if the buyer is not local. What shipping services have people used for framesets and how much have they cost?

Thanks for any tips.

ugo.santalucia

If it's desirable, sell it here... if it's less so, try Ebay, it gives you a much greater and diverse audience. I recently sold a 2 year old, well used TRP HyRD brake caliper for 43 pounds, so about 50% of the online price, which I think is pretty good.
I almost always managed to sell my stuff on Ebay, whereas on here if it's not near new Rapha/Zipp/Colnago it's quite hard to find a buyer

neeb

I suppose it makes sense to try here first at least. I'm trying to sell it, so of course it's desirable.. ;-)

High quality stuff but not the latest models/versions and with minor signs of use.

trivial_poursuivant

Plenty of groups on Facebook for selling bike stuff.

lakesluddite

I shipped a carbon frame via ParcelForce recently - with the extra insurance it cost around £20-25. It reached it's destination okay, but not until a balls-up at the sorting offices meant a 48 delivery turned into a one-week delivery!

As Ugo says, fleabay is great to get a wider market, but you do pay pretty hefty fees these days (even PayPal takes their cut if you use them) - I was a bit surprised at the amount they took as I'd not sold anything that costly before, but then again I may not have had such a high bid had it not been for the exposure. Swings and roundabouts. I think that due to their percentage fees, things on there aren't the bargains they used to be - people stick 10% extra on top to compensate, but for selling I would still use it.

If you don't want to post, have it as collect only - you are still going to get local people looking and bidding. You should ask for cash on collection if you go down this route, it gets around PayPal fees, but also ensures you don't get caught by any PayPal scams.

neeb

Thanks for the tips - hadn't thought of Facebook, good idea. And useful to know about Parcelforce.