WhiteSites Blog

Best place to sell your motorcycle

Posted on Sep 1, 2007 by Paul White


Just to get directly to the point.  If you are selling your bike, sell it on cycletrader.com  Here is the reason why.  I had already listed my bike on craigslist and it sat there for a month.  I got contacted by about 10 people interested.  Only one came by to see it in person.  I was selling it for $4500, and the best offer I got was $4000.  Others offered me $3700, $3300 and so on.  Craigslist did not get me quality leads.  I got a bunch of guys who wanted to pay me a little now and then over time pay me back.  If I was selling crap, and there was no demand for it, then obviously I would have to come down in price and negotiate. But I wasn't.  I was selling a 2001 GSXR 600 very clean, and under 10k miles.  The bike was painted solid white with no grpahics.  Within a week of posting my bike for sale on cycletrader, I had two people offering me my asking price.  I sold it for my asking price. They came picked it up, no hastles, no BS.  The following two weeks I recieved about 3 calls a day from other people wanting to know if it was still available.  I had to tell them it was already sold.  Basically you will get more quality leads via cycletrader than any other site.  You might get alot from ebay too, but I saw the same bike go for a grand less on there.  Keep in mind it is going to cost about $700 to ship the bike accross the country.  Granted I did buy the $99 package that gives me many photos to market my bike, but I think the single photo package would have worked just as well.

Also something to keep in mind is timing.  Since I was selling a crotch rocket the average age of my buyer is going to be young.  18-32 years old.  Something I know from experience is every guy going off to college gets bike fever during the first semester.  They see how cool the other guys with bikes look.  They get chicks.  And most importantly they get a parking spot!  Where there you are roaming for 45 minutes trying to find a parking spot for your car.  The bikes park on the sidewalk, or even have their own designated parking spots that are close to everything.  Plus with 40MPG they are cheap on gas.  The prime time to sell your bike is just as people are going back to school.  If you are selling a harley or something similar, I am not sure when to see it. Maybe around the sturges rally, but not sure since I am not really into that scene.

So to break down the three ways to sell your bike

Craigslist
The Good:  Its free, and you can reference your own photos using HTML tags.
The Bad: It seems to draw a lower income audience. 

Ebay
The Good: You bike will get alot of traffic on here, and you can still reference your own photos using HTML tags.
The Bad: After Fees it will cost you around $100 if you sell your bike for $4500.  Also maximum auction is only 10 days. From what I have seen bikes go for less on here because of the auction style format.  Ebay is also where I bought my bike in the first place.

CycleTrader
The Good: Your ad will be online for 30 days.  Seems to draw a much larger audience that is serious about getting a bike.
The Bad: Cost is between $40 and $100 depending on the ad package you go with.  Can not reference you own photos using HTML tags.

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