The articles in this series are designed to help the prospective eBay vehicle-seller to carry out a successful and low-risk/low-hassle sale. They include:
- Preparing to List Your Vehicle for Sale
- Listing Your Vehicle for Sale on eBay Motors
- Attending to Your Active Vehicle Listing
- Preparing to Conclude Your Vehicle Sale
- Transferring Payment and Vehicle Ownership
They're designed to be read in order, but can also be read individually for tips related to specific stages in the eBay Motors vehicle selling process.
Preparing to Conclude an eBay Motors Vehicle Sale
You've listed your vehicle and seen the listing reach a successful conclusion. Now comes the hard part—preparing to bring off a sale fraught with potential risks and issues. Not only to you have to keep your buyer reassured and interested and make arrangements for payment and delivery; you've also got to navigate government bureaucracies and paperwork to ensure that all goes well on sale day and you're left without legal hassles after the fact.
- Stick to your guns about terms. Some buyers think that they can
win an auction or end a listing and then ask for adjustments in terms after
the fact. Whatever happens after the listing has completed, don't change
your mind about your basic terms and requirements for the sale.
- Confirm interest in a sale. Don't just wait for things to "play
out" once your listing is complete; remember that eBay Motors vehicle sales
are non-binding. Instead, proactively
contact your buyer and confirm that
they are interested in completing the sale as per the finished listing.
Remind them of the payment, pickup, and/or delivery terms and confirm that
they are amenable to these. If you are no longer interested in completing
the sale, inform your buyer immediately that this is the case and direct
them to eBay's statement that Motors vehicle sales are non-binding so that
they are less likely to create annoyances for you after you have backed out.
- Confirm once you've received your PayPal deposit. After sending a
PayPal deposit, buyers tend to get antsy; letting them know that you've
received their deposit and are following through can help to allay any fears that they're about to be
taken and make the rest of the transaction more pleasant. If you're no
longer interested in completing the sale, log into PayPal, view the deposit
payment, and click the "Refund" link to refund the deposit. Remember, once
again, to let the buyer know that you're doing this and why.
- Prepare your buyer for the sale. Vehicle buyers are often a
little lost with regard to what they need to do to complete a vehicle sale.
If this is a vehicle that will require an active or temporary registration
in order to be street-legal, remind them to begin attending to this
paperwork with their own local government's motor vehicle division before
the two of you meet. If your locality has similar requirements and your
buyer plans to collect the vehicle from you and drive it back to their
locality, be sure to direct them toward your motor vehicle division
as well to clarify street legality requirements. Remind them, too, of
payment requirements and to be prepared to complete the sale entirely on the
appointed day.
- Make arrangements for pickup and delivery. Coordinate with your
buyer about pickup and/or delivery arrangements. If possible, avoid meeting
buyers at your place of residence, though they'll generally have access to
this information via the vehicle title once you turn it over to them. Be
sure to get a strong verbal confirmation that they intend to remove the
vehicle from the premises on the appointed day, or make clear
arrangements for when this is to happen so that you aren't faced with a
quasi-abandoned vehicle somewhere on or near your property or residence for
days or weeks as the buyer tries to come up with a transit plan.
- Prepare yourself for the sale. Connect with your local motor
vehicle division to know what you must do as a seller in order to properly
sell the vehicle in question. Many locales require you to turn in your
plates or face sanctions of various kinds (some severe) as well as to notify
the motor vehicle division in some way of the sale, with documentation.
Prepare a bill of sale (a Google search for "vehicle bill of sale" returns a
large number of free candidate forms; select one that meets your DMV's
requirements, if any). Finally, clean your personal belongings out of the
vehicle so that you're not left weeks later pining away for the favorite CD
or personal love letter that has forever been lost to another driver.
- Exchange contact information. Be sure that you have a way to contact your buyer directly (i.e. by telephone or SMS) as you work to complete the sale, and that they are similarly able to contact you.
With everything in place, you're ready to actually do the deal. But things aren't necessarily as easy as 1-2-3 when it comes to selling a vehicle, even after both parties have agreed on a price and on a place and all of the legal-regulatory questions have been answered and prepared for. It's important to keep your wits about you and have a game plan for sale day, too.
Go on to the next step: Transferring Payment and Vehicle Ownership
