Trading in used bikes?

[mojjo1]

Hi all

Wife and kids out shopping, kleenex now packed away, now back on PH's...

Do you reckon there's any money to be made from dealing with the selling and buying of road & mtb bikes?

I've always sold my bikes over ebay (i'm talking bikes worth 1-2k) with mixed results (monetary) but just wondering if anyone has gone one step further and does it for a living?

Is there room for the 'UK's largest used cycle centre' or do people prefer to get secondhand from the original source?

My head is saying there would be very little in profit as you're unlikely to get a bike for £300 and sell for £600.

Happy Christmas

Ed

[Beyond Rational]

I think if you put the time and effort into it you could make some money, if you are selective, in trawling the police auctions.

But I'd bet there are already a few others that already do that.

[mojjo1]

Thats the thing..

When I think about it i can see that a decent website would be great but then i'm met with where to advertise and how do i pull the punters in.

I'm on the cycle racing scene (cyclo-cross and local crits) and know the amount people do spend on bikes and just feel about having 'one' place where they can buy bikes from.

Although if it were me I love a bargain, whether new or secondhand i'm always sourcing out a right bargain. And some of the prices being asked for bikes on bike radar and ebay makes me laugh (but if they sell then good on them)

At the moment it's just a dream, but i'm worried about the stability and diversity in used bike prices.

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

depends who your market is, if its a niche area of hte bike world or if you are trying to catch them all. there is probably money to be made in the cheaper end stuff, the people who want a bike for hacking around town on but know better than an Apollo or something yet either baulk at the cost of something like a new spesh hardrock or are put off by the usual bike shop snobbery. a lot of s/h hardrocks and similar would be ideal...
personally i think there is a market for quality off road stuff upto £1K but anymore than that and people are going to go for a new bike. you would need time to build up stock though and you could end up spending more than you want to just to get enough. however, quality hard tails and full sussers will find homes and would be worth the effort.

as for roadie stuff, when you see the cost of the ribble bianco et al, you would be hard pushed to match it spec wise, roadies are snobs through and through and the sort of people who turn their nose up at a new ribble wont buy a s/h road bike either...

[XitUp]

By old steel stuff oop north, fix it up, polish it, sell it in London.

[dtmpower]

XitUp said:

By old steel stuff oop north, fix it up, polish it, sell it in London.

'fix it up' as in make it fixed gear

[mojjo1]

Cheers pablo

I know what you mean about the ribbles. I ride a Cannondale but personally think the Ribbles are great VFM and look the dogs

[XitUp]

dtmpower said:

'fix it up' as in make it fixed gear

You don't even need to do that. Just put 'retro fixie project' in the title and get an extra £100 on ebay.

[mojjo1]

I've seen a few trendy fix'd gear things going around my way but they are normally ridden by student types.. short handlebars, multi-coloured tyres etc etc.

[Allblackdup]

Quite like the idea as one thing that springs to mind is i'm sure there are plenty of people who do upgrade their bikes or have multiple bikes and other than ebay/gumtree what happens when they want to replace/get rid of one??

I guess the other question is if someone offered you a bike for cash but it needed a few new parts or some maintenance, would you be capable of doing that so that you could then sell on?

I wouldn't mind chopping in my hardrock pro for something like a cyclocross bikes as i think it would suit the use i'm getting out of the Spesh far more, plus because i'm thinking of something like a winter bike to replace it, it wouldn't necessarily need to be new so somewhere i could get genuine advice and even trade a bike in against another would also be a plus point imo..

[XitUp]

mojjo1 said:

I've seen a few trendy fix'd gear things going around my way but they are normally ridden by student types.. short handlebars, multi-coloured tyres etc etc.

How lame. I'm certainly not doing anything like that with one of my old Pugs or planning the same for my girlfriend's. Honest.

At least not the tiny bars anyway.

[mojjo1]

Allblackdup said:

Quite like the idea as one thing that springs to mind is i'm sure there are plenty of people who do upgrade their bikes or have multiple bikes and other than ebay/gumtree what happens when they want to replace/get rid of one??

I guess the other question is if someone offered you a bike for cash but it needed a few new parts or some maintenance, would you be capable of doing that so that you could then sell on?

I wouldn't mind chopping in my hardrock pro for something like a cyclocross bikes as i think it would suit the use i'm getting out of the Spesh far more, plus because i'm thinking of something like a winter bike to replace it, it wouldn't necessarily need to be new so somewhere i could get genuine advice and even trade a bike in against another would also be a plus point imo..

Yeah i've been racing since i were a nipper and do all my own bike stuff myself so broken bikes don't faze (is that how you spell it?) me.

As for x-bikes, I've a Kona Jake the snake and just done a swift 1 hour on it this evening. great bike..

But if I was to set a one-stop-shop for used decent bikes, how would I get it known...Cycling weekly springs to mind but the costs would be astronomical, bike radar is for private ads so that leaves ebay, so perhaps I could have a link to my site.


Any ideas welcome

Ed

[Allblackdup]

mojjo1 said:

But if I was to set a one-stop-shop for used decent bikes, how would I get it known...Cycling weekly springs to mind but the costs would be astronomical, bike radar is for private ads so that leaves ebay, so perhaps I could have a link to my site.

I think word of mouth is as good as a lot of advertising and if you take into account the social media sites i think there would be plenty of places to start off with. Plus as you're kind of doing something that doesn't really exist at the moment, you've got as good a chance as any of succeeding.

[summit7]

Never used this link or spoken to him but are you thinking something like :-

http://www.andrewwhyment.com/


It would appear it's already being done

[anonymous-user]

summit7 said:

Never used this link or spoken to him but are you thinking something like :-

http://www.andrewwhyment.com/


It would appear it's already being done

so we know as a concept it works then!, go for it OP!

[mojjo1]

pablo said:

summit7 said:

Never used this link or spoken to him but are you thinking something like :-

http://www.andrewwhyment.com/


It would appear it's already being done

so we know as a concept it works then!, go for it OP!

Thanks for that link, great info although that site doesn't have prices (which must put people off) and has limited info/photos on the bikes. So think i'm going to do this big time, i'm a photographer by day so hopefully can use some of that skill to enhance the look of a bike or two.



Thanks

[summit7]

As an aside I really was doing some OCD googling of a very specific wheel to chance upon that site.

Personally I think it is very poor without prices, just his name as the site name, no on-line "presence" of even top 100 result list hit, no google adwords marketing, no search word optimizing - not search submission but just the basic of having the correct words on his homepage for the relevant searching, I could go on go on go on.....

[mojjo1]

summit7 said:

As an aside I really was doing some OCD googling of a very specific wheel to chance upon that site.

Personally I think it is very poor without prices, just his name as the site name, no on-line "presence" of even top 100 result list hit, no google adwords marketing, no search word optimizing - not search submission but just the basic of having the correct words on his homepage for the relevant searching, I could go on go on go on.....

Hi Summit7


Wow and I thought i'd been searching. I spend my life on bike radar researching prices and to be honest they are so over the show that even i'm confused, people with pride and over optimistic pricing.

I know this is a car site but I love the look of and feel of the site; 'performance direct' in bristol, think they specialise now in Focus RS's but i've always had a thing to have a similar site but with bikes instead of cars.

Ed

[Beyond Rational]

What would be the warranty situation with such a set up?

Obviously as a private seller there is no comeback. With local bike shops it is easy to return a bike and relatively cheap for them to sort it. But if you sell online, would you offer a warranty and if so, would the postage costs of warranty claims potentially negate any profit?

[mojjo1]

Beyond Rational said:

What would be the warranty situation with such a set up?

Obviously as a private seller there is no comeback. With local bike shops it is easy to return a bike and relatively cheap for them to sort it. But if you sell online, would you offer a warranty and if so, would the postage costs of warranty claims potentially negate any profit?

Good call and too be honest i'm not sure..

I guess i'd have to look at what happens of you order 'new' online and aren't happy with it but being secondhand there must be a clause in place at some point which works best for both the buyer and seller..

...i'd only sell decent serviced bikes but even then that's no guarantee that that'll be the end of the problems. Small print I guess, honouring major failures within x weeks/months??, no wear and tear etc etc.