Have you ever sold your bike by auction?

[AceOfHearts]

I have never sold anything by auction before, but am thinking of entering my bike in the April Shuttleworth bike auction with Iconic Auctions (formerly Silverstone Auctions)

What have your experiences been?

My thoughts are the entry fee is only £50 and I can obviously set a reserve price so I wont be giving the bike away, and being quite a rare ;classic' I guess it has the potential to do well.

Unfortunately I have a few expensive house projects to fund this year, and I think selling some bikes is probably a better idea than getting a huge loan, and an auction means that I can free up the space and money fairly quickly if it does sell.

[Marquezs Stabilisers]

Yes, did a BMW F650GS on eBay as an auction. Sold for a price I was quite happy with and he arranged collection with minimal fuss. Not quite the same as what you're doing but worked well for me.

[podman]

I dont rate it for bikes, my friend had a poor expierence with these lot i terms of interest/price, cant see what advantage it gives you over a eBay or FB advert, I just sold my 996 via the Ducati UK Facebook page.

If I was going to put a bike in an auction,’it would be the Bonhams one in Stafford in October.

[trickywoo]

They take 18% of hammer on top. Of the buyer but unless it’s a special bike I can’t see how the seller comes out on top when you have to get the bike there etc.

[ssray]

I'd try evilbay and Facebook marketplace first or the owners pages on Facebook

[tvrolet]

I haven't sold a bike at auction, but I've bought a couple. I think you maybe have to look from the buyers perspective, and that will depend what the bike is.

If it's decent (high?) value classics, then an auction would be where I'd be looking (and historically the only place I looked/bought). If it's a barn-find/project, then my first port of call is eBay. For newer stuff probably autotrader. Again, depending on the bike, if it's an older classic then the target audience is maybe older too and they may not be on Facebook or any of the other new-fangled sites...I'm not.

[Discendo Discimus]

I wouldn't bother, I buy and sell bikes.
Normally buy on Facebook because the prices seem to be cheaper, and sell on Ebay with a classified ad but open to offers.

Sold 5 bikes last year and 4 the year before. Nice little pocket money earner.

[daniel-5zjw7]

The other thing to be aware of - which isn't direct experience of Iconic, was Collecting Cars but i assume the same would apply - is that they may not let you set a reserve you like. After all they just want the item to sell, not meeting reserve is no good for them, so they're more likely to get you to agree to a low reserve but then try to give you the confidence it will do well, but ultimately its a gamble then for you.

As others have said it doesn't work for cars or bikes of a reasonably low value imo, I looked into selling a £8k classic car via Car and Classic auctions a while back albeit still ad based, but what they wanted upon a sale was ridiculous (£500 ish) compared to a £20 Ebay classified which gave the car a shedload more exposure anyway.

[NITO]

As a buyer I tend to look for higher value bikes on Car and Classic, I'm not a fan of auctions, bidding blind, or against buyers who are bidding blind, maybe ok for a static collection piece but if you are intending to ride there are a lot of classics that need a lot of work to be safely roadworthy.

I used to use ebay, however I'm extremely pissed off that just to send an enquiry now they want you to submit your name, phone, email address, inside leg measurements, I don't want strangers knowing all this info until there is a rapport there and you're at a more advanced stage of the process.

Facebook Marketplace is ok, but haven't had a lot of success looking for bikes, too many scams, timewasters and advertisers who don't respond, FB owner groups is a much better avenue but maybe more fierce competition as a buyer for anything half desirable and all the nay sayers commenting on the flip side.

Autotrader I find a bit lame but sometimes it's worth a scoot and same with MCN classifieds.

[srob]

podman said:

I dont rate it for bikes, my friend had a poor expierence with these lot i terms of interest/price, cant see what advantage it gives you over a eBay or FB advert, I just sold my 996 via the Ducati UK Facebook page.

If I was going to put a bike in an auction,’it would be the Bonhams one in Stafford in October.

My brother sold a couple of bikes at Stafford last year. Both sold above estimate and the whole thing was handled really well. They collected, cleaned, photographed and advertised them too.

Obviously there are fees, but there are massive benefits like the auctioneers' long list of contacts they keep!

Very much depends on what you're selling though, I'd say.