If any of you have been to my Selling Used Parts in an Online World class, you know that I love, love, LOVE online sales! eBay, Car-Part.com — selling online makes me happy! Here are my top 5 tips for selling used parts online:
1. Great pictures
- Go look at pictures from other yards that you admire and try to copy them.
- Make sure the background doesn’t have clutter
- A white background is what makes pictures pop — look at Amazon!
2. Clean parts
- If you are looking online and YARD ABC has a clean part with nice pictures for $50 and YARD XYZ has a dirty part laying out on the ground for $25, which one would you buy?
3. Great descriptions
- If you are writing great descriptions for eBay, why not put your parts on Car-Part.com with great descriptions?
- MRN does not mean MAROON to most people who aren’t in our industry.
- 2D1 does not tell my Aunt Judy that there is a dent the size of a credit card in location 2.
4. Follow through
- When you describe an item as 000, make sure it gets to your customer as 000!
- If the item has a “light scratch,” tell the customer that from the beginning.
- “Item exactly as described,” is the #1 compliment a yard should want to see!
5. Price your parts
- I have to repeat this one several times a year —having $CALL as the price is the kiss of death. No one who is looking online wants to call you for a price.
In my research for some of my classes, I found some interesting tidbits from eBay that I would like to share with you:
- 40% of consumers have recently increased or significantly increased online purchasing.
- In Q2, eBay’s active buyers grew by 8M, up to 182M.
- Nearly 36% of US consumers are now buying retail goods online, compared to 29% who were doing so in mid-April.
- More than half of millennials and Gen Z consumers say they believe their lockdown habits will continue.
I found these numbers quite fascinating! I hope that you do as well! As always, if you have any questions or comments, please contact me! I love hearing from you!
Theresa Colbert is a public speaker who goes to state association meetings, at no charge, to give classes on cores, brokering and much more. She offers on-site support to salvage yards in many areas and has been an on-the-ground representative for Car-Part.com for five years. Prior, she worked at Nu-Parts Automotive Products for 10 years, was a manager at Winter Auto Japanese Engines in Glendale, Arizona, and at AAA Economy Auto Parts in Phoenix, Arizona. With 23 years of industry experience, Theresa has seen the auto recycling world from almost every point of view.