Selling machinery by auction

[Clive]

I am on TFF pretty much everyday and never go to the classifieds anymore. Find it almost unusable.
Registered but not really a user of Facebook other than for looking at and occasionally buying/selling stuff on their machinery for sale groups. Almost the go to place for private machinery sales now I’d say.
Have to say I’ve got a 100% success rate selling there and 100% fail from here.

This is meant as feedback not criticism. I am sure it can be done given your can do attitude @Clive

you don’t have to go to classifieds for something to catch your eye as all listings are made into threads which appear in everyone’s new posts search, having sight of the stats behind the scenes shows us that a lot more people see the adverts than they did.

of course what suits some doesn’t always suit others, systems that are ideal for every users are just not possible

auction can certainly be done but it’s a question of only being viable if it’s wanted and would be used

 

[Clive]

I would say a fixed listing fee is the fairest way, if the seller doesn’t like the amount then he won’t list it. If you have a buyers fee it will hold back people from even thinking about bidding. I only ever think about listing something on eBay when it’s “free listing” or “ max selling fee £1” so I would suggest not to charge too much as you will struggle to get enough users.

fixed fee is certainly the most simple solution but unless we take something from the buyer then I fear sellers would get a lot of time wasters bidding on their items ? Taking a credit card payment from a buyer when the auction ends creates a commitment to the deal that would hopefully keep the time wasters away ?

 

[Clive]

Thanks for all the feedback so far, it’s really helpful, please keep it coming

 

[benny6910]

fixed fee is certainly the most simple solution but unless we take something from the buyer then I fear sellers would get a lot of time wasters bidding on their items ? Taking a credit card payment from a buyer when the auction ends creates a commitment to the deal that would hopefully keep the time wasters away ?
Possibly but I just think if your getting involved with the selling price then your open to all sorts of arguments about items not been as described, buyer not paying in full. It would need to be a nice percentage or you’ll be spending lots of time for not a lot of reward.

 

[roscoe erf]

What are people's thought of online auctions? Do you trust them?
Personally when I look at any of them and it says reserve not met I just scroll on.
Brown&co online as a good example. They only sell a very small % of lots. Waste of everyone's time.

auctions are not what they used to be

 

[steveR]

Alot of the bigger deals on Ebay are now done on the buy it now, make an offer
rather than auctioned .

Yep, that is my preferred option in many instances.

 

[steveR]

There's been at least 2 revamps of the classifieds, each time making it more difficult to list items.

I have used TFF Classifieds on several occasions, some successfully... Don't like Autotrader really, so will sometimes try eBay, but too many failures to complete on it for my liking. I insist on a deposit on Sale now...

I have to agree that the process does seem long winded at times. The requirement to List the maker is a PITA, as I put it in the Header.

 

[steveR]

I think seller should pay. That's what we do when we sell our cattle, don't see why this would be any different.

Agree, anyone who tries asking me for a Buyers Premium more than a couple of quid, will see my leaving very quickly.

 

[cousinjack]

My personal experience of online auctions has not been great...

eBay and the like, enjoy racking up the prices but do offer the guarantees and are generally pretty good about disputes .... however you do get a lot of people that win and then never show up to collect or pay !!

Another online auction I have dealt with belongs to a well known and reputable machinery dealer
The item in question was a clearance item that frankly would not have been much interest to many other bidders..

If I had my 'deeply paranoid' hat on, I might suggest that someone behind the scenes was bidding up the item rather than bidding against another buyer... when I suddenly stopped bidding and supposedly lost the auction ... it was miraculously offered to me after the action for my last bid ... hmmmm. ????

Take from that what you will..

 

[e3120]

Like others have said, classifieds is not quite there. A bit too much like hard work for both parties.

But, I'd really like it to work, as the biggest asset of this place is the community. I'd like to think that I wouldn't miss-sell a dog to another member here and that a farmer-member would do likewise for me. No problem with dealers, just need to be identifiable, as they can't know the history of the machine they're selling.

 

[Tractorstant]

i would suggest we would only take either listing fee or commission once (seems fairer to me !).

should buyer or seller pay though ?

Seller pays the commission always here. Ranges from 5%-10% plus VAT, we act as the Broker though and stakeholder.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

yes and I know the owner, it’s what got me thinking originally about adding that functionality to TFF Farm Classifieds

Not the best idea you have had , no one likes buying by Auction. If they do I can't think why

 

[lloyd]

Not the best idea you have had , no one likes buying by Auction. If they do I can't think why

Auction can be a great place to buy but only if you're prepared
to walk away,set your limit.
Likewise collective auctions are a great place to sell stuff you
wouldnt want to sell privately (not sure that would work so well on here though).

 

[Grassman]

I find most auctions on ebay will have someone bidding up to the price the seller wants. If it doesn't reach the price the sale doesn't actually happens. So not really an auction!
Ebay is full of scammers. I would not trust anything on there unless I have seen it or spoken to the seller.
I find the classified ads better on ebay than auction.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Auction can be a great place to buy but only if you're prepared
to walk away,set your limit.
Likewise collective auctions are a great place to sell stuff you
wouldnt want to sell privately (not sure that would work so well on here though).

Would you buy a digger at auction. Know of guys bought tractors at a well known auction to find no gears in the gearbox when they got it home
I spent half a day driving the digger I'm planning to buy , a fault showed up so the fitter is having a look to see what the problem is . He's being more than fair about it . If he sorts it I should think I will buy it

 

[dieselboost]

Have not bought anything through any TFF Adverts yet but from browsing over the last while always seems to be genuine kit being offered by genuine and straight sellers at realistic prices. I would echo the other comments from members on this thread that it continues to build on this solid foundation.

 

[mini messi]

Recently sold an aerator on ebay, buy it now for £3500, PayPal charged me £95 pounds for the transaction and ebay charged £200 plus vat. I was delighted I got it sold so can't complain about the charges though I would of preferred a cheque but the guy bought it without even seeing it ?‍.
Sold a trailer on Facebook market place, lot of texts from Ireland but then a guy 40 miles away bought it within 3-4 weeks of the add going up. So I'd say its a good option having fb and ebay but it's a wee bit of hassel esp if your busy.

 

[Henarar]

we use to sell loads of stuff on ebay years ago, buy it at farm sales and private list it for the lowest price we would take as a starting price and anything over that was a bonus, we found reserves were hopeless and cost more, on average we would double our money, the bank crash and alterations to ebay took the fun out of it, hardly ever look on there now and when I do it seems full of new stuff or a few quid more than you can get it somewhere else if you hunt around.
have sold a few things on here including a few bulls and a few bits of machinery and it seems to work fine.
sold a few things on FB but I find FB hard work and hard to follow to be honest.

Used to like watching the ebay auctions finish for our stuff sometimes wishing folk would stop bidding so much for some of the old stuff we use to sell in case they were disappointed but they nearly always seemed happy, had a couple that came to argue but managed to sort it, one problem was folk buying stuff paying for it and never picking it up.

not sure how it would work on TFF, would it get the number of views ebay does ? only one way to find out I spose.
The main thing we found was to take good photos and plenty of them and be as honest as you can as potential bidders/buyers can't go far to view as they may not win the auction

 

[Clive]

Not the best idea you have had , no one likes buying by Auction. If they do I can't think why

seem to be a lot of auctions in agriculture of "no one " likes them? a lot of ag stuff on eBay as well? .................. how odd, what a bad idea ............... I know I can spend a load of money building an app that you can use for free instead !

 

[Clive]

Behind the scenes, the software that runs TFF gives users a "reputation" score based on various criteria such as number of posts how long a member, number of "likes" etc - it is possible that we could use this number to give buyers and seller an eBay style feedback score?

Just ideas at this stage but putting them out there!