If you have a car that you don’t want anymore, there are a variety of ways to sell it. You can stick a “For Sale” sign on it, park it outside your house, and hope to sell it that way. You can also list it for sale in your local newspaper. But if you want to make sure that your car garners plenty of attention while you’re selling it, selling it online is the way to go. More specifically, you should learn how to sell a car on eBay.
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If you haven’t ever sold a car on eBay before, the idea of doing it might scare you a little bit. But you’ll be happy to know that eBay has made it very easy and very safe to sell cars on their website in 2021. You just need to go about doing it the right way by learning how to sell a car on eBay prior to getting started.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to sell a car on eBay that should help you get started so that you can sell your car in no time at all!
How to Sell a Car on eBay in 11 Easy Steps
Before you begin trying to sell a car on eBay, you need to make sure that you’re ready to do it. Although it’s not that difficult to do, it is going to require you to follow a very specific set of steps to ensure that your sale goes off without a hitch. If you skip even just one of them, it could result in you making a lot less money while selling your car than you could otherwise. It’s important for you to follow these 11 steps on how to sell a car on eBay.
Step 1: Begin By Creating an eBay Account
If you’ve sold things on eBay in the past, you should be able to use the same account that you already have set up to sell a car on eBay. But you’re in green behind the ears when it comes to selling stuff on eBay, the first step you’ll want to take when learning how to sell a car on eBay is create an eBay account.
To do this, you’ll need to begin by registering as an eBay member. You can register with eBay by:
- Providing eBay with some basic information about yourself (don’t worry, it’ll be stored on eBay’s servers, which are completely secure)
- Create both a user ID and a password through eBay
- Confirm your registration with eBay by clicking on a link in an email eBay sends to you
That’s all there is to registering with eBay. But once you do that, you’re also going to have to set up a seller’s account with them. This will be a little bit more advanced and will call for you to:
- Hook a debit/credit card and a checking account up to your account
- Let eBay know which payment method you’ll use for settling up when it comes to selling fees
After you’re done doing all this, you’ll be ready to go with regards to selling a car on eBay. You’ll be able to move on to the next step on your quest to learn how to sell a car on eBay.
Step 2: Collect Information on Your Car
Once you’ve registered for an account with eBay and finished setting it all up, the next order of business is going to involve stepping away from your computer to gather information on your car. You’re going to need to collect all the info you’ll need to list your car for sale on eBay. This is a very important step as far as figuring out how to sell a car on eBay is concerned.
So, what exactly will you need? eBay has actually created a whole “sell your vehicle” checklist that will shed light on everything that you’ll want to have. It calls for you to gather things like:
- Your car’s vehicle identification number (go here to see how to find it if you don’t know where to look)
- A vehicle history report for your car (CARFAX can help you with this)
- The title for your car
- Any other documents that you might need in your specific state (e.g. some states like California call for you to have a smog check done prior to selling a car)
You won’t be able to sell a car on eBay without each of these items. It’s why you should attempt to get them together sooner rather than later.
Step 3: Take a Lot of Great Photos of Your Car (Inside and Out!)
One of the big advantages of selling a car on eBay as opposed to selling it with a “For Sale” sign or with a newspaper listing is that it’ll provide you with a chance to show off your car from every angle. You can take dozens of photos of your car and post them as part of your eBay listing to entice people to check it out.
You should whip out your smartphone or, better yet, your state-of-the-art camera and snap lots of photos of your car. You should make sure that you take photos of:
- All four sides of the exterior of your car
- Your car’s interior from various angles
- Your engine and everything else underneath your hood
- Your odometer
- Close-ups of any imperfections that exist inside or outside of your car (this is important since you don’t want buyers to complain later about problems that you didn’t point out!)
You don’t necessarily need to take 250 photos of your car. But you should provide buyers with a thorough look at your car from top to bottom. You’re going to have to work harder than you should have to when figuring out how to sell a car on eBay if you don’t have enough photos handy.
Step 4: Create an eBay Listing for Your Car
After you’ve gathered all the right information on your car and taken tons of photos of it, you’ll be ready to create an eBay listing! This is where things will start to get exciting since it’ll bring you one step closer to figuring out how to sell a car on eBay.
eBay has a special “Sell Your Item” form that you can use to create an official eBay listing for your car. You should click on this and begin to fill it out from start to finish.
Step 5: Put Together a Complete Description of Your Car
When you’re creating an eBay listing for your car, you’re going to begin by coming up with a title for your listing. That part will be pretty easy as all you’ll have to do is include all the most important information about your car, like the year it was made, the make and model of it, and the number of miles on it.
But it’s going to get a little harder from there. When learning how to sell a car on eBay, you’ll next have to come up with a complete description of your car. It’ll need to include all the different features of your car and really sell them hard to people.
Here are some things that should be included in the description for your car on eBay:
- The type of engine that’s in your car
- The overall condition of your car (again, try to be very honest here since you don’t want a buyer complaining about the condition of your car later!)
- The options and packages that are in your car
- The features of your car
- The modifications that you’ve made to your car
- The history of your car and the number of owners it has had
- The maintenance records that you’ve kept for your car
- The warranties that still cover your car
The more information that you can include about your car in your eBay listing, the better! You shouldn’t leave any stone unturned when creating an eBay listing for your car.
Step 6: Figure Out What Kind of eBay Auction You Want to Hold for Your Car
Most people know that eBay is an auction site. But what you might not realize is that there are a few different types of auctions that you can use when learning how to sell a car on eBay. It’ll be up to you to decide which auction you want to create for your car.
Some of the types of auctions you’ll be able to hold for your car will include:
- A no reserve price auction that starts at a certain price and ends at whatever price a car is at when an auction is over
- A reserve price auction that has a minimum price that you would be willing to take for a car
- A buy it now auction that allows you to determine exactly how much you want someone to pay you for your car
There are pros and cons that come along with each of these auctions. You should carefully consider each one and select the type of auction that you think will work best for your car.
Step 7: Decide How Much You Want to Try and Sell Your Car for on eBay
Regardless of which type of auction you decide to hold when learning how to sell a car on eBay, you’re going to have to come up with a starting price. In some cases, you might want to be strategic about it and throw out a very low starting price to get people interested in your auction. But you might also want to make the starting price of your car the exact amount that you want to try and get for it.
You should see how much your car is worth right now and use that information to come up with a good starting price for your car. You’re going to want to set the price right so that you’re able to drum up interest in your car as soon as your car hits the auction block.
Step 8: Come Up With the Terms for Your eBay Car Sale
A lot of people get to this step when learning how to sell a car on eBay and skip right over it. It’s not all that fun coming up with terms for an eBay car sale, so they don’t see the point in doing it. But this is arguably one of the most important steps of all, so you should make sure you don’t forget about it.
When you’re setting the terms for your eBay car sale, you should decide:
- If you’re going to call for a buyer to put down a deposit on your car right away after winning your auction
- How soon you’re going to expect payment for your car at the end of your auction
- Which financing options a buyer will have after placing a winning bid on your car
- How you’ll arrange to get your car to someone who buys it on eBay
- What will happen if a buyer isn’t satisfied with your car’s condition upon receiving it
You’re going to find yourself in a world of trouble if you don’t come up with the right terms when selling a car on eBay. It’s why you shouldn’t ever skip over this step.
Step 9: Make Your eBay Auction Live and Manage Your Car’s Listing
After you work your way through the previous 8 steps that we’ve discussed, it’ll officially be time to push your eBay auction live. You can make the listing that you created for your car and sit back and watch the bids for it start to roll in.
You should also keep a close eye on your listing and make adjustments to it as necessary. For instance, if you find that potential buyers are asking the same question over and over again about something that they’ve seen in the photos of your car, you might want to edit your listing to clear up any confusion that exists.
You might also want to tinker with the price of your car if you find that no one is bidding on it. You can always lower your asking price at any time if you want to.
Step 10: Respond to Any Questions Potential Buyers Might Have About Your Car
As long as you’ve followed along with the steps mentioned here while learning how to sell a car on eBay, you shouldn’t get too many people asking questions about your car. All the answers to any questions people might have should be right in your listing.
But there are inevitably going to be some questions that will come in from buyers. And it’ll be up to you to answer them quickly to keep people’s attention. You should do your best to send answers to any questions that come your way within an hour or two if possible.
Step 11: Complete the Sale of Your Car on eBay
At the end of your eBay auction, you’ll be able to find someone to take your car off your hands if everything goes according to plan! All you’ll need to do is complete the sale by following a few simple steps. You’ll need to:
- Send an invoice to the winning bidder and accept payment from them
- Arrange for the winning bidder to pick up your car or schedule your car to be shipped to them
- Transfer the title to the winning bidder
It’s going to take a decent amount of time and energy on your part. But you can learn how to sell a car on eBay in a hurry if you commit to following all the steps laid out here.
Not Interested in Selling a Car on eBay? Here’s Another Great Option!
There are some people who enjoy going through the process of learning how to sell a car on eBay when they want to get rid of a vehicle. But there are others who want to sell a car and have it be over and done with as soon as possible.
If you fall into this category, then selling your car to Cash Cars Buyer is going to be a much better option than figuring out how to sell a car on eBay. All you’ll need to do is let us know some basic info about your car and we’ll have an offer for you in an instant. And if you choose to take us up on our offer, we’ll pick your car up from you and give you cash in exchange for it. It doesn’t get any easier than that!
Contact us today to discover more about how to sell a car to a junk car buyer for cash.