wthensler 

Hello all,

I have two 2012 road bikes - a Giant Advanced Defy 0 with Ultegra Di2, and a Trek Domane 6.2 Project 1, also with the Di2 set up. Both are outstanding bikes, and each one probably has several thousand miles on them. I'd say both are in excellent shape ( never been down, fingers crossed). Both are carbon fiber, stock wheel sets and everything else.

I am thinking of upgrading at least one of them to the new Trek Domane SLR 7, and I don't need three bikes. I paid approximately 4,500 and 6,000 for each.

I've never sold a bike before and wondering if someone could give me an idea what to ask, and how best to sell one of them. While I don't want to give them away, I don't need to recoup top dollar. I've gotten massive amounts of enjoyment from both, and the fitness level increase alone has been worth it.

I do ride them and love riding, and nice bikes make me wqnt to ride, so not afraid to upgrade, even as I am pushing 60...

Jeannean

Check ebay completed "sold" listings and Bicycle Blue Book. That should give you a starting point for an asking price. As to how to sell one, try local sales via Craigslist and/or Facebook local cycling pages. There are two "used for sale" cycling related FB pages here that people check more often than CL. I would try and sell locally first, as it's easier than having to mess with shipping the bike.

znomit

Rule of thumb, halve the MSRP and then take off 10% for every year old the bike is.

Bikeracer123

N+1

rpenmanparker 

Craigslist is horrible in my experience. All scams.

eBay has inconveniences like shipping and some significant costs of about 13% even with customer-paid shipping. Nevertheless eBay is on the up and up nearly all the time. The market exposure is huge and popular stuff sells very easily. I wouldn't use anything else.

sh00k

Craigslist is nice because you have (for the most part) local buyers. The bad part is that you should expect to be low balled left and right. The result, you may keep renewing and renewing your ad for a while until you get the right fish to bite.

I think eBay prices generally wind up higher than Craigslist so that's where I would go first. You will probably sell it for a higher price which makes the administrative costs for selling sorta justifiable.

Many people assume folks selling high ticket items on Craigslist are in despair and need cash. Although it may not be the case, many folks base their offers by using this mindset. I've both sold and bought a ton of stuff on CL and 90% of the people I've done business with wanted to negotiate by huge margins.

Just my 2 cents.

Voodoo76

I've sold on both CL and eBay for years. Bigger items I usually list on CL for a week or two first (save the selling fee). My experience there has been pretty good but I usually get a quick sale or nothing.

As mentioned above you need to factor in eBay fees. Also for new sellers they may hold your payment for a period of time.

Juan Foote

Craigslist can be a quagmire of spammers, scammers, phishers, phone number mining...it goes on and on. And, you CAN actually sell stuff there. I typically don't invite people back to my house unless I get a really good feel from them. Make sure to use the anonymous email they offer for the initial back and forth.
For bike sales I typically offer to meet at the police station that is close by and has a large lot. I also ask for the buyer to show me cash, up front, before test (read as joy) riding.

mcours2006

Pinkbike is another option. I bought a bike from there. Not as big as CL, but this is a dedicated bike site.

WhyFi

This is pretty my MO as well.

Also, it seems like a no-brainer, but be sure to put together really good ads for both CL and ebay. I find that having really good pics and descriptions (both touting the item and fully covering condition and what's included and what's not) helps to not only realize the best selling price, but to also weed out some of the asinine responses and head-off any disputes down the line. Most people understand this when it comes to ebay, but a lot short-change their efforts on CL and they're then rewarded with wading through the CL bs.

jordanair45

CL you're going to get less and low balled, don't settle, be patient.

Ebay, you have to ship, but bikeflights.com makes it easy and their fees can be a lot.

I sell on CL just because affter fees on ebay it pretty much comes out to the same price.

Ebay might be better for highier end bikes.

Bicycle bluebook is a good place to start. Sometimes you get more than BB, sometimes you get less.

Jeremy_S

Best advice I can give is check your local cycling groups on facebook. Here in DFW there are several dedicated facebook classifieds for bikes. You get fewer idiots than CL and no fees like eBay. Granted I despise facebook and use it for nothing else because I don't care who you're voting for and why your candidate will make the world full of sunshine and rainbows nor do I care what you ate for the last week or who you're sleeping with at the moment but for selling bikes without the brutal stupidity associated with CL it's ok.

And prepare to take a bath, used bikes have the worst resale of anything I've ever seen including dodge trucks lol.

rmfnla

eBay does offer a local buyers (pick up) option but you still have to pay their 10% fees plus the PayPal fees if you get paid through them.

I recently sold a gas grill on CL with absolutely no fuss so it can be done, and of course there were no fees.

Nothing says you can't list your bikes in more than one place...

katsup

eBay has scams as well and some dishonest people who will claim the item is not as described then ask you eat shipping both ways so you can get the item back. If you are lucky, you'll get the item back in the same condition. eBay is also tends to side with the buyer in most dispute cases which worries me. I just use eBay for the easy to ship items.

Craigslist takes awhile, and has a lot of low ballers, but if the item is priced right, it does sale. Most of the items I sell are low to mid end so not sure how hard a higher end bike would be to sale. I know when I bought my mountain bike, I had the seller meet me at a bike shop and had them look it over to make sure nothing major was wrong before I even test rode it.

t595

I have done both CL and ebay and the opinions here are about right. Check Bicycle Blue book for a starting point. As for CL, as cheesy as it sounds I always put something in like "this is a fair price and ridiculous offers will not be considered". It seems to cut down on the low ballers although you will still get people that try. That said, make sure that you have some room to move on the opening price. The buyer will still want to get a "good deal" that is 5-10% less than you are listing.

denny1969

I think that you are getting good advice about the venues to sell them.

Another is to see if your LBS has a consignment program. Some shops will give you straight store credit towards a purchase of a bike after yours sell. Some will take a small cut.

If you choose to list via eBay or Craigslist, make sure to take quality photos of the bike from different angles and all its key components. Do not forget to list those components and other features.

Good luck on the endeavor.

Dennis

wthensler 

Thanks, all. I'll weigh my options and decide whether to sell or not. There is at least one dealer in NC that'll take my existing Domane on a new SLR, but I'd like to try private sale first.....I will get a little misty eyed, but the SLR 7 is without question a smoother ride.