oldlugs

Its not just road bikes that don't have any value these days, I've had all sorts of vintage bikes here and nothing sells. It started to go downhill years ago after 9/11, then it died completely around 2009. I've even listed good bikes for free and found no takers.
When I was a kid, I'd be all over a free working bike, these days you don't see any bikes on the road. I can' remember the last time I saw someone riding a bike around here that didn't look like they were homeless.

It doesn't matter if its low, mid, or high end, none get any attention anymore. I've listed vintage chromoly frame road bikes, old balloon tire bikes, and old mountain bikes and get no interest. I had a 50cm 2009 Raleigh Super Course last summer, it was a minty clean newer bike, but super small. I even offered it for free to a buddies kids but they had no interest. I put $25 on it at a local flea market last summer, and lowered the price to $10 and got no takers. I finally pulled the wheels and gear train and scrapped it.
I had a Gitane Tour de France in 54cm, all original, with good tires. I put $200 on it, got nothing, I dropped it to $150, then $100, still nothing. I finally parted it out. I got $40 for the perfect wheelset with tires, and got about $50 out of the other small parts and brakes. The frame got listed for free with no takers, I finally tossed it in the scrap pile.
I had at least 300 new vintage tubular rims here that wouldn't sell, I ended up scrapping them and melting them down for the aluminum.
I had huge bins full of new take off brakes, bars, and crank sets, for a while in the early 2000's that stuff all sold well, but it died. It wasn't a matter of it just not bringing the money it did before, it wasn't selling at all.
Part of the problem is that shipping got expensive, and eBay started charging a lot more to list. So much so that we stopped listing completely around 2009 due to the fact things weren't selling and the fact that he fees were eating up too much of the profit.
I've sold a few things here and there but for pennies compared to what they were worth 15 years ago, and most don't even sell for what they were worth 40 or 50 years ago.

J.Higgins 

That's a pretty grim review of the situation, OldLugs, but I think that you are spot-on. Of course we are amidst our Northeastern Mid-Winter Bicycling Blues™ season, so its easy to feel down about things. I sold a beater Raleigh Twenty last week, and got way more for it than I expected, but I consider a Twenty to be a niche bike - eclectic and weird. That makes it desirable. People will drive many miles and pay mucho dinero for what they desire. This where the science of marketing comes in. You have to dangle that carrot and make them thirst after it.

joesch

We also have it good getting those vintage bikes for deals / steals
Its a buyers market and many of us C&V'ers have taken full advantage, the N+1 times.
Im surely one and now own more classic rides then I would have ever believed.
I could not afford the bikes I own today back in their days.
That is one reason why I enjoy looking at the 1994 listing.
Would like to see a 1984 listing, anybody have that ?

oldlugs

The problem is that around here, its not just this time of year lately. Last season I only sold two bikes, and the guy who bought that came 600+ miles. There is zero local market, at any price. I've watched bikes sit on CL for a year. I picked up a well used but ridable 1978 Raleigh Super Course that needed tires, an '80ish Trek 400, and a Nishiki Professional for $20 off CL. The Raleigh is well maintained but well used. Its perfectly ridable but ugly. Its my size, so I took it. The Trek 400 is ok, lots of changed parts but ridable, but I was mostly after the Huret Jubilee gear changers it had. The Nishiki Pro was beat up, but with a minty wheel set with original Rigida 1320 rims and Sunshine hubs. The sad part is that if I relisted any of them, they won't sell here even at $20. Not that I have any desire to give them away, but its the truth lately around here.
I had picked up an all original Schwinn Apple Krate paired with an older Stingray single speed, both bikes were all original, they were hanging in a garage down the street. The guy that had them owned them since he was a kid. He thought they were worth a mint so he went through the whole Facebook listing mess and then he took one to a local bike shop to sell. The shop put it out for a month or so and told him to come get it they were closing. The best offer he had gotten was $150 for the pair. I traded him a Snapper riding mower for them. I did a major detail job on both, left all the original parts and listed them separately at $450 obo. I got nothing, not so much as a single email on CL. They were listed under five area CL sites. I finally ended up trading both to a guy for an outboard motor just to get rid of them.

Years ago this time of year was when bikes and parts sold the best, we did the best between mid November and early March, both locally and on eBay. When it was warm, it slowed down to almost nothing. Even a few shops had told me the same thing back then. They were dead all year, they had to make their whole year at Christmas time and with after Christmas sales.
One big change is the loss of the foreign, mainly Japanese buyers on eBay. I had three or four guys there who went nuts for anything French. They went away after 9/11, with only a few items on occasion going overseas.
Now there's no overseas buyers. I gave up on eBay though, its just not worth the trouble anymore.
I wish CL had a hit counter, that way I could tell if anyone actually ever even looks at ads for bike there. I don't think I've sold more than two or three on CL over the years around here. Most were through word of mouth.

wrk101

Shipping is really not that expensive, about half of my parts can go first class mail, the other half go padded flat rate envelope; with the exception of wheels, frames and handlebars. Framesets can be shipped at a relatively reasonable price, a wheelset will cost as much or more to ship than a frame.

I find ebay fees to be reasonable, for the value I get. They give me access to a nationwide or world wide market. In return I pay them 10% (actually I am paying 8% but I have a store and top rated seller status). They have specials frequently with free listings. PayPal adds another 3% to the fees. If you think ebay is expensive, try selling on consignment at a local shop. Around here, the consignment shops charge 50% and you just get the local market, so prices are low. I can get 5X to 10X on parts on ebay versus local sales. Beats giving away bikes!

In the last year, I have sold over $2,00 in cranksets alone on ebay! Last MTB wheelset went for $150, buyer paid shipping, etc. I've got 8 more identical sets. Avoiding ebay because of fees is not good business in my view. Given my over abundance of bike stuff, its either sell it here (which I do some), sell on ebay, or donate. I've had items here listed for $X. Didn't sell. So I listed them on ebay for 2X and they did sell. So I doubled the price, and paid ebay 10% for the privilege. PayPal fees are there regardless.

repechage

Parts are trading.
makes one think that there is a value to the effort of building up a bike. That part of the “hobby” is in good shape.

might be that interest
or, could be that dribble of small packages that fly under the radar of the spouse?

rccardr 

Don't know anything about the lower end ($100-300 bikes) of the market, but this has been interesting reading.

Most of my interest lies in the mid to upper tier vintage stuff. When I downsized my collection this past September/October, some sold here, some sold on eBay, one on CL. All together sold 15 bikes and 5 frames in less than two months (and we were out of the country for two weeks in the middle of that period). About half of the completes were in the $600-1000 range, the other half in the $1000-1400 range, all plus shipping. One frame sold for $600, the others were less expensive. The Cannondale SR500 listed on CL (the least expensive one out of the collection) sold for $450 in three days. So, there's that.

Have sold a lot of parts on eBay, stuff that I bought for projects that took a different direction or components that came on complete bikes that I didn't want or need. Good pictures, well written text and free shipping if it's small and going first class mail makes a big difference. For the prices people pay, am happy to give eBay their 10%, etc. Stuff that doesn't sell after a long posting even after the price has been reduced goes to the local Co-op along with items not worth the bother. They love to see me coming and I get a modest tax deduction.

oldlugs

One of the biggest issues I had was sensless returns and theft on eBay. I was done after a regular buyer tried to stiff me for a new old stock Corbin hub. The thing was mint. He gets it, its in the original box, as it came from the factory. It came from a defunct NYC shop that closed up in the early 70's when the owner died. The box and hub had no age whatsoever. Before the tracking info even showed it as delivered this guy files a not as described complaint and wants a refund. He's instructed to return the hub via eBay/paypal rules. A week later, I get a box with a rock in it. I took pics, went round and round with eBay over it but all they see is the tracking and they refund the total plus shipping. That bidder and one other had run the bid way up, about three times what I would have figured it would have sold for. I sort of figured he planned it from the start.
I sold four others and no one else had a problem, and I used a couple to build a few new old stock wheels back then. I did eBay at roughly 2,000 items per week from 2000 to around 2005, from 2005 to about 2012 I listed only a few hundred or so items at a time. I never had a negative, but had 12 people return either empty boxes, used items, or bricks to get a refund. The worst items were anything kid related. Lots of kids bidding without their parents permission resulting in a non paying bidder.
Nowadays if I have something that needs to go on eBay, I've got a woman who lists for me. She does hundreds of items every week. She told me the other day she had 16 non paying bidders in the past two weeks, mostly on bicycle and sporting goods items.

oldlugs

For the most part, around here, it don't seem to matter where in the model line a bike was, to most people its just a bike and anything over $20 is too much. I can count on one hand how many knowledgeable bike people I've had reply to an ad. The Walmart mentality seems to be what rules here.
I listed several higher end bikes, Raleigh Professionals, Competitions, and higher end Trek models but they get zero replies unless they're priced like a Huffy.
Bikes like Huffy, Murray, Roadmaster and such sell if they're cheap. I think its a matter of brand recognition and if they can't afford better, they simply never heard of the better bikes and don't know the difference.
CL and FB seem to attract that type of buyer here. I got an email this morning on a bike listed on CL, asking if I knew if they could put 120 spoke rims on it, if so do I have any. Another person emailed me right before the holidays with a page long rant about how no bike is worth more than his car, and that he only paid $200 for his car. The bike was a Schwinn Sidewinder MTB from the early 80's that I had listed for $550. It was the only email the ad got in four months. The bike is a solid 8 out of 10 condition wise in a 23" frame. He wasn't making an offer, he just felt the need to type out a full page rant about how dare I ask that for a bike. The bike finally sold but I took a road bike in trade and it went over 300 miles away.
Over the summer I had a matched pair of Legnano Roma Olympiade racing bikes, in all original condition other than having modern tires glued on. Both bikes were ridable. I bought them in Feb of 2018, they were listed from May of 2018, till August 2019 without a single email on them at $900 and $500 each. One was really mint, the other one a bit used but still nice. Both had near perfect paint and wheels. I got only one email, from a guy in Canada. He emailed me after watching the ad for a long time, he was concerned about there being something wrong with the bikes since they hadn't sold. He finally made the drive after I sent about 100 pics of the bikes via email. He said he couldn't believe why no one snapped them up. He kept the cleaner one and sold the other one up in Toronto. He had it listed for $2k for about a week.

What gets me most is that I'm only 40 minutes south of Philadelphia, and I get almost no one from the city. Most that do email from up there don't drive and want the bike delivered, and they want the bike for cheap as well.
This used to be a strong area for road bikes but anything high end was a rare sight. Most people would opt for a Varsity or anything Schwinn over any high end road bike. Its likely brand recognition more than anything else.


The last time I needed to ship a bike, the cheapest was FedEx, the bike was still boxed in its original box, the box was 54x29x8". FedEx wanted $131 to ship a bike from NJ to Seattle. The PO wouldn't take it due to the size. and UPS was nearly double. Frames are a problem but wheels haven't been, I usually chop down a small bike box for wheels and send them FedEx, I think the last set a few years ago was around $40 coast to coast.
The only frames that seem to sell are huge, 62cm or larger. The smaller stuff don't sell. I had several 69" Raleigh Marathon road bikes a few years ago, the cost of shipping kept them from selling, but the eventual buyers all came a long way for the bikes. Those and huge vintage Panasonic road bikes used to gain the most attention here.

rccardr 

Don't mean to be offensive, but you're kinda coming across as a crotchetly old man.
And as an old man, I say that with respect.

I recently shipped a a complete bike from VA to CA, which is as far as you can ship something, cost via ShipBikes on FedEx was under $100.

Sell lots of stuff on eBay, have for years, never had anyone ship me a brick or rock in return.

Don't know your local market but my post was simply one set of data points. My experience in the long term has not been as problematic as yours.

repechage

Oldlugs has had some bad luck.
dividing the bad luck into the total reported transactions in sales numbers, not dollar cost it reads below average.

i just had the opposite situation.
won a competitive auction- I bid enough to prevail. Pay promptly, same day included stated shipping cost that was typical. It was a whole bike, silence for three days.
then get a eBay message that the bike went too cheap... ( no reserve ) but if I would pay over 2x what I did he would consider. Can you spell extortion more clearly?
ebay was to be blunt, almost useless. I did get my money back after the “expected arrival date” and a week after he claimed he processed a Paypal refund.
the eBay rep stated we will “ding” him whatever that really means. He is off selling other stuff with swarmy feedback.

SurferRosa

Use shipbikes.com.

My last coast-to-coast full-bike shipment was $85 (including a mere $5 door-to-door charge). They used Fedex Ground, and it took 5 days.

oldlugs

All I did was take the bike to FedEx, they weighed it, measured it and said it would have to go double oversize', what ever that means. I think the problem is that it was a huge bike, 62cm frame and the box was a foot taller than most. If it were a small frame bike, the box would have shipped for $85. The problem is, I've never had any luck selling small bikes, the larger bikes sell faster, especially the older models.
I've been sitting on a half dozen small frame bikes here for years that are super clean but just won't sell. One is a 21" frame Nishiki Sport that someone converted to a flat bar comfort bike of sorts. Its probably the most comfortable bike I've ridden but its WAY too small for me with a 36" inseam, Its 45 years old an in pretty much new condition. I listed it locally for $200, not a single hit. Ran it with no reserve 5 years ago on eBay and not a single hit. Its not a high end bike but would make someone a great commuter bike, rear rack and fenders and all. (Think Raleigh Sprite 27 but with alloy components).
What gets me most is that I see old English lightweights listed for $50 and $75 and they just sit, there's a early 60's Hercules listed right now for $75 that looks pretty decent, its been up for four months. Those were really good bikes and you couldn't touch one under $300 if it was so much as complete 15 years ago. I had several local buyers that grabbed up every last one of them I listed. As they got old, the market dried up. The same with old balloon tire bikes. It seems they've been forgotten completely lately. They used to sell fast,now they sit unsold. Ladies bikes would sell for parts, men's bikes brought more money.

A lot of it is that the current generation doesn't remember them, and we're likely at the point where even their parents didn't 'own one when they were kids'. I'm old enough to remember them still being a common sight.
The problem with this theory is that what usually happens with things like this is that as the generations mature different items become 'collectible' or such. Usually as we grow up, and get to a point in our life when we have some extra income, we look to own the things we either couldn't afford when we were younger, or things we had and made good memories with. That age group was usually around between 35 and 45 years old. The problem is, that age group doesn't seem to be following the normal trends. They don't collect, they throw away, and they're teaching the next generation to do the same. I see in my own neighborhood. They buy things, use them once and throw them out, then buy them again when they need them the next time. The problem is most of the thing they throw away these days are cheap Chinese junk anyhow but its gotten me some nice tools and several new lawnmowers over the past few years. (Got one guy here who tosses his mower at the end of every season and buys new in the spring).

The type of guy who throws things away like that rarely collects anything or sees the value in something older.
On top of all this, fewer and fewer of the up coming generations even ride bikes. I live in a semi rural area, when I was younger we had bikes, motorcycles, go carts and mini bikes. Today I see none of that.
Most kids don't even own a bike and don't want one. Most don't even get a driver's license when they get old enough. They walk or rely on their parents to drive them around. When I was 12, I rode 35 miles each way to get to my grandparents house on an old Schwinn Varsity with its original fenders, a steel rear rack, and a bag of spare parts and tubes. It was a normal occurrence for me. Now they can't go around the corner without someone driving them there.

Its not just a matter of old bikes not selling here, there's no bikes at all these days. I went to the local flea market this morning, there wasn't a single bike there, not being ridden or sold.
There's no more bike shops here, at least not good one's, The closest doesn't keep parts, and sells the same bikes you can buy at Walmart, the next closest one only sells high end bikes, nothing under $1500 or so.
One of the few times I stopped in the one local shop, some guy had walked in with a bent wheel. He wanted a replacement built. The guy told him he'd have to order it, and all you can get is what's in the book. He stocked no wheels, no parts, no spokes, nothing and couldn't build a wheel if his life depended on it. To me, that's not a bike shop. I spent years working part time in a good bike shop years ago, we built wheels, fixed bikes, even straightened frames and forks. It was part of what made it a bike shop. Bike shops had all the specialty tools, spoke threaders, dies to re-thread parts and frames etc. Not no more. If its broke, they want to sell you a new bike.
On the flip side with shop overhead being so high these days, with rent or taxes or high labor costs being what they are, I can't see how any small business survives these days. The average business on the main road around here is likely paying over $10K in property taxes alone, then add in the soon to be $15/hr minimum wage. They'd have to sell 25 bikes a day to stay afloat and the reality is that they likely don't sell that in a month. When a shop owner tells you his biggest headache is having to go around and pump up all the tires it tells me those bikes are sitting there way too long. in 2005 we had five bike shops within about 15 miles of here. Those are all gone. the guys retired or went broke.

When it comes to eBay and parts, there are some parts still listed, often at maximum prices. Years ago we would put items up for bid, the market would determine what they were worth. Now they just seem to sit for sale in someone's store forever. I think part of the lag is because when its a Buy it Now, there's no bidding frenzy to drive up the price. Also, buyers have time to contemplate the cost and change their mind. Those that do hit buy it now, often change their mind down the road and send items back for no reason or because they found it cheaper somewhere else. People nowadays expect to do like they do at Walmart, buy it, and if they change their mind or don't need it anymore they return it. My neighbor here had a yardsale after his father passed away. They piled everything out on the lawn. He was selling clothes for a quarter. He had more than a dozen people buy clothes, then come back later in the day and say they didn't fit. He even had several come back a few days later saying they changed their mind and wanted their twenty five cents back. Its the same thing at the flea market these days. They put up a sign stating that all vendors much accept returns and provide bags and receipts if requested. Go figure, no one wants to be bothered selling there anymore. I watched a guy who bought a used fishing reel tell a seller there he wanted his money back because he found one for less two rows over. He was arguing over couple dollars or less. He wanted his $3 back because his wife found someone selling a cheap Chinese reel for $1 on another table.
I get the same thing selling on CL, they buy something and turn back up a month later saying they want their money back, they don't need it anymore. I see that happening on eBay too now. A buddy sells sports items, mostly hats and jerseys, most sales are hats, all his hats are genuine merchandise. He said the average for returns is 1 out of ever 5 gets returned, and half of the returns aren't re-sellable because they show obvious signs of being worn. He has no choice but to accept the return. A buyer can buy something, wear it for a day and sweat it all up, then return it for a full refund. He can't resell it as new, and likely no one would want it as used either. He's at the point where he's most likely going to call it quits because between the fees and loss to returned items and the added lost shipping, its eating up his profit margin to the point its now worth selling. Now if he were selling bikes, wheels or frames, imagine how bad that return shipping cost would be eating into any profits.
I set up one local flea market a few times a year to dump things that didn't sell, I let things go cheap just to make room. The last time there, in late Sept. I sold a guy a Schwinn Breeze ladies frame and fork from a bike that had been stripped to complete a men's bike. I had $10 on it. A guy comes over and looks it over, he mulls around for a half hour, then leaves, he came back 5 or 6 times through the day. He finally offers me $5 and I take it.
That was around noon. They place closes at 4pm and the new rules are you have to stay till the end. I'm packing up around 3pm and he comes back with the frame and tells me his wife doesn't like it, and he wants his money back. The flea market policy is you have to oblige so I give him his money back. Over the course of an average day, that crap happens four of five times lately. I ended up using the fork on another bike and I junked the frame. Now I see it or one just like it, sans the fork, listed on CL for $20. I had a guy buy a cheap pack of gel handlebar grips for a dollar. I knew he was going to be a problem the minute he asked if they would fit his bike and how to change them. I told him if he brought me the bike I'd swap them for free. Before the day was done, he comes back with the bike, a Walmart model, and the grips. He said he tried to put them on but they won't stay. He had cut the old grips off with knife long ways, then he cut the new grips in half the same way and tried to back wrap duct tape to hold them on. When I told the idiot he ruined the grips he wanted his money back saying they didn't come with any instructions and it was my fault. I'm sorry, but people like that push my patience. There was absolutely no way he was getting his lousy dollar back after I saw what he did to them. The grips would have cost him $10 in a store, and he ruined them..He made a scene, had the flea market manager out there, even the cops over a dollar. In the end the cops ran him off and told the flea market guy they weren't going to enforce any return policy.
All that over a dollar.
When you have to deal with people who buy small dollar items and then turn around and want their money back all day, it gets old pretty fast. Personally I don't think I'd ever have the balls to go back to some guy selling at a flea market to ask for my quarter or dollar back on something.
If your wondering why I have them out for only a dollar, its because they won't sell at $2. The top price for anything at the flea market is about $10 and that's a rare occasion. Most people walking around these days don't have $20 in their pocket to spend.

I'm not yet a crotchety old man, but give it a few more years and we'll see. But of course, AARP and my old wooden cane may say otherwise.

repechage

Oldlugs- throw in the towel.
this does not read as profitable or enjoyable for you. Make room and do something else.

crank_addict

Right off, I'm going to agree with the fellow remark of 'time to toss in the towel and find another hobby'.

Though have to agree with most of your words, you've yet found a way to work with changing times, markets and...... peoples mind's.

And just like everything, your assets, real estate and its ups and downs, the test of our nerves investing in equities, whatever... READ - the buyer pretty much sets the market.

Example is your comment on the change in eBay. That's a shift to profit center 101 eBay but lets discuss the seller and buyer whom uses those options.

Here's my take. I don't give a hoot whatever price is listed or what the seller wants, even if its fixed price and no best offer >>>> or if its been listed for two years....lol.

So for those ebay style or type of listers, I often approach those sellers with a greater success then before! No snipe bid, no care of when waiting of auction end, etc..

As a buyer, I simply contact the seller asking if they would consider $xx amount and be done with it. Do I care if they decline? Heck no! The funny thing is, most accept my offer.

(BTW: Since when has ebay 'enforced' sellers to take returns on product? For long as I recall, stating Sold as is and shown, no returns, no exceptions - you don't like this sellers policy, move along. ---will trump any dispute from buyer, eBay or PayPal. If such ebay seller is so beat up, suggest to use it. Feedback and ranking is the telltale.)

cycleheimer

I keep seeing the same old lower end bikes month after month. They need alot of work, plus tires and other things. The prices are in th $150 ro $200 range. They should be in the $25 to $50 range, or even just put to the curb. A few years back you could get great deals on tires, etc. Those deals seem to have vanished with the exit from the market of key low price suppliers. This alone would exert downward pressure on prices. Since I buy 'em to ride 'em, no problem. I am stocked up on supplies, and found some incredible deals last season. Really, really nice deals ... with a downside. There is an inverse relationship between the size of one's bike collection and available space in the home ... and the lady of the home's level of tolerance.

cocoabeachcrab 

I've fixed up a bunch of bikes over the off season, didn't really care what i spent because it's a hobby that i love and time well spent, i'll ride them this year to see what ones i like and which bikes are meh... i'll unload the non keepers and won't care what i loose in the process, because i'll just consider it the price of enjoying a hobby and the return to better health as i start riding again. i know for sure the Moto Grand Jubilee that i bought from a member here will go.. it's just too big a frame, and a Technium that i did a bad repaint on is going as well. but i learned some things with those bikes.. at 64 i can't get away with a bike size that i could make work at 21, and i needed to learn some patience with paint jobs!

J.Higgins 

Brother, I think you need a new venue to peddle your wares. It sounds to me like you are trying hard, but you are selling to the wrong demographic. I've always considered flea markets as a place to prey upon fresh sellers, emptying their households of salable goods. Similar to a yardsale or barn sale where you would find an old C&V bike for short money. Selling at a flea markets is a losing proposition and you always need to be on the lookout for new goods. Flea markets are also very incestuous. Regular sellers will vulture around anyone new rolling in, vying for any profitable buy. Buy from one seller and sell it on their own table in the same day.

My advice is to try antique swap meets, and bicycle swap meets. One of the biggest events in the northeast is Brimfield, MA. Anyone who has a dozen or so old bikes and old parts to display, can easily make a huge profit there. DAMHIK! Its the demographic of the clientele. Upscale people with lots of disposable income, looking to spend it on anything that catches their eye.

This. I also will add this to anyone else here experiencing problems. Change it up. A down market is only down because we LET it become down. Nobody ever needed a cell phone 50 years ago. Now, people who do not own one are considered primitive. They - the big companies SOLD US. They sold us the idea that we needed cell phones, and now everyone has one. Success all how you spin your product.

Last ride 76 

TULIPS,

I'm going with tulips for security.


A couple of points, regarding eBay. I am very careful to document, with photographs, the condition of the items I list. Or that I feel don't live up to their listing.


There's a bike on FB listed in "good" condition, The forks are almost pretzels, but photographed to hide it. If you brought a case at ebay, guaranteed seller loses. on FB, who knows.

Knock on wood. buying or selling, I am ok with the platform, with the exception of shipping charges being assessed at 10%... But their house, their rules. I sometimes bundle the 10% into the shipping cost, along with an explanation, and an assurance that I am not trying to make any profit on shipping. I have not had any complaints using that strategy.

GLWS all of us!

kross57

I've said this before, but my take on it is, the folks who were young during the bike boom days lusted after the higher end bikes they couldn't afford then. Later, when they were in their 40s and 50s, they had the leisure time and disposable income (and the nostalgia) to buy those higher-end vintage bikes, driving the market up. Or they would just purchase the same bike they had "back in the day". Today, those folks are in their 60s and 70s and many aren't buying bikes, they are selling them. So supply is up, and demand has dropped. That's just my theory and one many folks share.

Shrevvy 

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a no return policy on eBay any more. A seller can state "no returns," but eBay will largely side with a buyer and force returns even to a seller with that stated policy.

eBay commands a wide venue and their fees are largely worth it. I have sold on eBay since the mid-1990s and done so through a few different businesses that we owned over time (tens of thousands of transactions). In the last 9 months, I have been selling bike stuff (bikes and accessories). Prior to that nine months (this eBay ID was started in 2005), I had one bidder on my block bidders list. I added another yesterday and now have 24 bidders on my blocked list. In nine months, I have blocked 23 bike bidders. Almost all of them have been for non-payment. I have had guys make multiple best offers on an item (as we countered back and forth) and then disappear after reaching a deal. You just have to learn to move on. They are annoying and I can't understand their motive, but in the end they have just cost me a small amount of time.

I have never been sent a rock or brick in return though.

tashi

What a condescending and false statement. Pathetic.

crank_addict

Pretty simple as a seller, eBay as agent, and buyers. Seller MAY define their terms upfront and that IS policy.

Assume seller is clear in defining sale terms but there's an issue.
1- Case must be opened
2- If a case is opened, communicate that way only and 'IF' you say will refund, only upon return and buyers expense. Item(s) must be exact as when first shipped.
3- ebay has a very clean trail of communication (monitor and or prevent one from going outside their sandbox). Use that but also screenshots for record keeping. Seller has a very good chance using it as evidence against ebay (shall you not agree with them) including buyer.
4- The bigger challenge though for seller is if buyer opts to use credit card for payment and NOT PayPal. In those situations, be prepared for a longer battle.

tiger1964 

But 100% consistent with my experiences on group rides since I've resumed riding 2-1/2 years ago. And not just younger riders, older ones too and even shop personnel. "Why would you ride that?" So, I tend to ride alone now. I presumed that if I were selling a bike, I'd confront the same thing.

BTW, eBay & CL asking prices, especially here in the Washington DC area, being 2x to 3x a realistic value, might explain why the same bikes stay up-for-sale just about forever.

nazcalines

If the item is not as described or damaged in shipping, the seller will pay return shipping whether they want to or not.