What happens when you sell your motorcycle on eBay with a 99p start price and no reserve?
That’s what we wanted to find out.
As part of our Buying and Selling guides, we’re putting our money where our mouth is, by listing this Ducati 998S for 99p and charting the progress for all to see. Whatever it reaches we can safely say is what this motorbike is worth.
We all sell our bikes for different reasons. Often time is of the essence and you just need to turn your bike into cash. Motorcycle dealers might offer you a lousy part-exchange price (especially if you’re trading in a marque they don’t sell) or you just don’t want to field enquiries from BikeTrader or MCN for weeks on end, getting nowhere.
We also put this Ducati’s details into national bike buyer WeBuyAnyBike to see what they valued the bike at. Their first quote was a jaw-dropping £1125. Thanks but, no thanks!
There are lots of bargain bikes to be had on eBay but before you jump in and buy a bike on a whim, it makes sense to get a quick insurance estimate to see if you’ll be able to afford to ride it. Our motorcycle insurance estimator tool takes just 1-minute to get an accurate estimate. Why don’t you see what it could cost to insurance this Ducati?
A 99p auction with no reserve is a guaranteed way of quickly selling your bike but will it mean you end up getting a far lower price?
We’ll start this auction this Sunday and link to it from this very article. We’ll run it for 7 days, which is the most popular auction length. We’ll update this article on a daily basis showing the price movements and plotting the bike’s journey to its new owner. Once it’s sold we’ll evaluate the process and figure out whether a 99p auction is better than listing your bike for a lower price than you ideally want for it.
Auction progress:
Sun 26th May: Auction goes live. Bids of £0.99, £100 and £4,000. Day ends on 43 Watchers and 154 views.
Mon 27th May: Bids of £4,300, £4,500, £4,600, £4,800, £5,300. Day ends on 127 watchers and 604 views.
Tue 28th May: Bids of £5,500, £6,500, £6850, £7,000. Day ends on 143 watchers and 880 views.
Saturday 1st June: Bid of £7,350. Day ends on 188 watchers and 1021 views.
Sunday 2nd June: Despite the number of watchers, the auction ends with no more bids on £7,350.
The buyer doesn’t make contact for two days and then when nudged, replies with:
“Hi. Unfortunately, my financial situation changed after I placed my bid and I am no longer able to complete the purchase of the Ducati. Very sorry about that. I would have indicated this via EBay bidding, but there was no option to report this change of situation. Dave”
Thanks Dave, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time and your lame excuse doesn’t wash with me.
Bored of the number of time wasters and dreamers on eBay, I can’t bring myself to list it again.
I make a Second Chance Offer to the buyer who bid £7,000 and – unsurprisingly – he bites my hand off. 48 hours later he’s riding the bike off my drive, a happy man.
