Mark's guide to buying Austin Seven items using Ebay
Philosophy Buying strategy Tips Bidding methods Research Monitoring Seller's strategies
Ebay has become, for many, the ideal way to look for and acquire parts for their Austin Seven projects. As ever, where a group of genuinely nice enthusiasts gather and create a demand, suppliers will meet that demand and the sharks will also appear!
I worked for many years in the Internet Service Provision industry specializing in E-commerce (the marketing and selling of goods via the Internet). Coming to Ebay for some of my current AVH van project items was a logical step for me as it provides an "arm chair" method for parts location and purchase. It has also helped me make a network of new friends and contacts who help me in finding those harder to find items and information.
I am very positive about Ebay as a tool. It is, in my opinion, and excellent way to trade parts. I am very pragmatic about the purchases I make on Ebay and, through my philosophy and strategies for using Ebay, I have no fears or worries about trading with unknown people.
My philosophy is based on supply and demand and is that "an item is only worth what someone is prepared to pay". You may think this is obvious but in the online auction the buyer can be influenced by the unscrupulous into raising his/her "prepared to pay" amount. This happens because the seller providers the item information within an environment that only promotes information/communication in one-to-one exchanges between the seller and each potential buyer.
My strategy is equally simple. It is to gain pricing and scarcity knowledge and share that knowledge with everyone else. Gaining this knowledge may require patience and a routine of searching Ebay for items as a research activity for an hour twice a week. Do not be tempted to start bidding the first time you see something you need unless it has a low starting price, typically £1. I was surprised myself to see how often items I though were "rare" were put up for auction. Some items described by their sellers as rare can turn up in multiples every week.
Tips for searching Ebay for items - If you have used Internet search engines you will understand the concept of "keyword search". That is searching lists of Internet information using specific words to locate your subject. At first glance you may think that Ebay's keyword search facilities are the same as an Internet search engine but they are subtly different. When using an Internet search engine the simplistic premise is that the more keywords you use, the more likely you are to find your desired information. This is because the keywords are generally used with a conjunction "OR". This works as a funnel guiding you to your target. An example - The search string "Austin seven 7" will find all information with the words "Austin OR seven OR 7" in Yahoo, Altervista, google etc. In effect any information with any one of these three words (7 is a word to the search engine). Ebay do things differently I suspect because they want to sell their marketing services to sellers. In other words Ebay restrict the ability of the potential buyer to search and find items in order to sell promotional services to sellers forcing them to pay more to reach a wider audience of potential buyers. Ebay's keyword search facilities use the conjunction AND and therefore searching for "Austin AND seven AND 7" will only return a list of items that includes all three words in the title. I must emphasize this point. It will not return items with word(s) "Austin ","Austin seven","Austin 7","7" or "seven" only in them. This paradoxically means that there is a high probability that the more precise your search, the less likely you are to find what you are looking for. An example of a logical Ebay search would be "Austin seven zenith Carburetor". This will only return items with these exact words in the title, so if a seller has listed an item with another spelling for carburetor (a common occurrence) then the item will not be found. Likewise if the listing contains "Austin 7 zenith carburetor" it will not be found. Logically you would think that putting in more variation e.g. "Austin seven 7 zenith carburetor carbureter" would increase your chances of listing what you seek. Wrong!. The way to increase your search results is to simplify your searches and do more of them. For example "zenith" will return all items with zenith including watches and clocks. The list will be long but worth looking through because someone may have listed an item with no knowledge that it fits an Austin Seven (also a common occurrence) therefore searching for "Austin zenith" would not find such an item. I generally do not use more than 3 words when looking for items and, as a rule, use two words and choose to look through longer lists rather than miss something. It is also worth noting that if you use the "search description" option under "Advanced Search" all of the above is also true at the date of writing.
Since first writing this guide have noticed two additions to Ebay's keyword search. 1. Plurals : The search words "lucas lamps" will return results for both "lamps" and "lamp". This is helpful.. 2. Spelling : Ebay now prompt you if you misspell a search work. However this can work against you if a seller as misspelt a word in his title.
When it comes to bidding methods these seem to fall into two groups. A. The considered bid and B. the last minute bid war. I recommend A. Look for your item, research the item, make your bid earlier to the full amount you are prepared to pay and then monitor progress. If you are then outbid consider what the item is worth to you before increasing your bid.
There is now available commercial software which promotes the "last minute bid war". This works by submitting small incremental bids in the last few seconds of the auction. You will lose the bidding against this software if you only bid in small amounts because you do not have time to react to the new bids in the last few seconds of the auction. However if you have already submitted your highest maximum bid (which is both realistic and is as much as you are prepared to pay) you will only lose against this software if the user really wants to place a bid higher than yourself. For example a new unused Lucas Distributor still in its box is not likely to actually sell for 10.00 GBP. Your will lose this in a last minute bid war. If you placed a realistic maximum bid for 100.00 GBP then there is a good chance you might win the bidding war because the other last minute bidder might not be prepared to go this high. There is also a high chance that you could also win the item at 12.00 GBP rather than losing it at 11.00 GBP. Remember that Ebay already automatically bids in small increments on your behalf but only up to your maximum bid.
Your research should include obtaining copies of current retail price lists. Many times I have seen items such as new tools and books selling for many times the current retail price. The most disgusting example of this is the sale of "The Austin Seven Manual" by Doug Woodrow which I have seen sell for as much as £120 when it is still in print for £39.95 from the publisher (see books page). I have overheard traders at autojumbles bragging about selling copies "new unused"on a regular basis. It is worth asking a reputable retailer if items are available. It is a small world and most reputable retailers know who is making what and where it can be found. Regular monitoring of items as previously mentioned will also give you a feel for what prices items generally achieve at auction.
When monitoring progress of an item you have bid on, it is well worth taking a look at the other bidders. You can look at the details of other bidders. The main area to be aware of is entering into a bidding war against a bidders with no trading history. While it is quite possible to be up against a first time buyer, if the item is likely to go very high then there is strong temptation for the unscrupulous seller to set up himself, or through an associate, a dummy buyer to place dummy bids to push the price up. This can be very lucrative in a last minute bidding war. Even if they push the price too high they just report the dummy bidder as a non payer then offer the item on "Second Chance Offer" to the next highest bidder i.e. you. Of course they can just re-list the item for sale again if you turn it down and reclaim the previous listing costs from Ebay and continue until they get the price they want.
There are other seller's strategies to be aware of. Obviously lying about the condition or description of an item can achieve a higher selling price. It is always worth asking direct questions of the seller about the item during the auction. Especially about any claim made that cannot be verified in any of the pictures. I have been caught out once in thinking that an item was very highly polished. This wasn't deliberate on the part of the seller, it just happened that the camera flash had caused more reflected light off of the metalwork making it look shinny when it was actually quite dirty. Methods of payments for the item can also afford you some protection against this and you should look into these carefully. Some credit cards offer protection against fraudulent transactions and Paypal also offer payment protection. My personal method for an expensive item is to arrange a collection from the seller at which time I will happily pay him/her cash for the item. This affords you the opportunity to know who the seller is, where they live or work and to view the item before hand over the money. While the offer of cash payment is a good carrot, the unscrupulous seller will most like want to keep you at some distance to preserve a degree of anonymity.
Of course the description can also be manipulated or "sold up" with the liberal use of adjectives such as "rare", "ultra rare", "once in a life time opportunity", "bargain" etc. More often than not these reveal more about the sellers ignorance of the item than they to tell you about the item itself.
The most recent strategy I have seen is that of inference. This is usually more subtle and will trap the unwary and uninformed almost every time. I have seen this method applied a number of times by unscrupulous sellers. As the name suggests they do not state directly that some thing is "rare" however they serially foster a climate of rarity by selling something readily available many times. This can be done quite simply by putting a low starting price on an item e.g. £1, placing a high "Buy it now" price e.g. £100 which sets an expectation of the auction reaching 80 - 90% of the "Buy it now" price. Finally they protect their costs and minimum profit margin by placing a reserve price e.g. £50 to ensure that they cannot make a loss on the item. If it doesn't sell because it fails to reach the reserve it aids the inferred value of the item because the buyers see the seller is not prepared to let the item sell for just any price. I have seen this happen many times for Whitworth tools for example. Items that I know come from Machine Mart. An example might be the Whitworth thread TPI tool (3.99 GBP Machine Mart) never sold for less than 10.00 GBP (inc. postage). That fact these sellers can do this many time means that the seller has identified and area of demand for an item that is not well marketed by the manufacturer. This happens a lot in niche markets where many of the manufacturers are not much more than cottage industries run by enthusiasts and budgets for marketing and promotion are small or non existent. Many businesses survive by personal recommendation and not marketing.
Postage - Lastly be aware of the postage and packing costs given (or not) by the seller. Some sellers will load the the P&P costs to increase profit. While it is only fair to allow an amount for the time and materials used in packaging. You check this if you know the weight of the item. Royal Mail have a postage calculator on their web site www.royalmail.com in which your can enter weight and they will give you a comprehensive list of services and there costs. For example a 20Kg (44Lb) parcel can be sent for 11.65 GBP within the UK. The Royal Mail Price Calculator can be found on their web site at the top under the quick finder drop down list. I have not yet found any other parcels service who can beat Royal Mail on price both in the UK and worldwide.
In the above I have been careful to describe the bad guys as unscrupulous sellers. There are, of course, many business selling items on Ebay who are very good and legitimate who are not unscrupulous but just "in business". They buy low and sell as high as they can. Also there are many private individuals who sell who are also not unscrupulous. Telling one from the other is not easy. However you can gain an insight into the seller's reputation by the amount and detail of information provided on an items, their willingness (or unwillingness) to communicate with you, their generally knowledge of the subject area i.e. Austin Sevens plus the details of terms and conditions attached to the sale of the item such as postage costs, returns policy, methods of payment. Also look at the seller's history, the comments left by other buyer and the items that they have previously sold. This can be seen by clicking on the seller's name and/or number next to the coloured star. All these areas can provide you with a "feeling" for the personality of the seller.
Ebay is a great tool and like most tools can be used for good or bad.. Research the item, fix your price and don't be drawn into a bidding war. Items tend to be like buses with everyone trying to get on the first one that comes along when two more appear just after the first one has gone.
Happy hunting!
Mark Warner - Updated 26/2/2006
