Recently I posted my experience with Cars & Bids as I placed my 2009 XKR Portfolio Edition up for auction. To recap, that auction was bid to a "reserve not met" and efforts to put together a deal after the auction failed poorly. Now on to the Bring A Trailer experience.

First of all the Cars & Bids auction preparatory mechanics were relatively simple, straightforward and of course, the cost up front was zero to the seller. The BAT prep was somewhat haphazard with no options for filling in basic specs specific to this particular car and the "fee" was a modest $99. The C&B auction took a total of 8 days from acceptance through ad construction to publishing. The BAT auction accepted my ad on August 4, took my fee submission on August 5 and finally contacted me for ad construction today....September 2. Now, realize in the defense of BAT, that BAT has over 4 times the submissions of C&B so expect the process to take significantly longer. BAT does explain in their instructions to expect at least three weeks before actual publication after acceptance.

My ad should? publish in the next several days and I will report on that portion of the process as it unfolds.

 

I just went through this process. I submitted to both BAT and C&B to see what each would do in regards to a reserve price.

BAT came back many day's later after submitting the basic info that they are only willing to do a no reserve auction. They said that they are "inundated with submissions in this price range and unfortunately we simply cannot list them all."

C&B came back with a really low reserve however was super responsive. I gave the ad to C&B and it should go live next week.

BAT has the cult following, just seems overwhelmed with how many submissions they are receiving. Doug at C&B however has a HUGE youtube following thus I would imagine his site to start gaining tractions with all the issues going on at BAT.

 

When I was approaching C&B they initially did attempt to use a vey low reserve, but after two unsuccessful attempts they did agree to use my reserve...and with the result of the auction it's a good thing I did. Frankly, I was mildly surprised that BAT not only accepted my car for auction, but agreed to my reserve without any qualms. Granted, my reserve was a bit lower than that used with C&B but it still surprised me considering the huge volume of ads BAT runs and the high quality of the ads themselves. I've heard so many stories of folks being rejected by BAT it almost sounds as if the entire acceptance process is dictated by their backlog of pending applicants. Come to think of it, that may explain why it has taken almost 5 weeks for my ad to process.

In retrospect I do think that I should have spent the money to have my car professionally photographed in order to assist in making it looks it's best. Oh well, lessons learned!

 

Mo -- Thanks very much for sharing the process and details -- it'll be a help to others.

Do you see another X150 in your future?

 

Thanks for the thought. That was my intention since the overall process can be a little overwhelming and the more you know the better prepared you can be. Another X150? Probably not. I may be moving to Panama later this year and those cars don't work too well down there. However, if the move does not come to pass that could be yet another opportunity.

 

Following up on this. My car sold on C&B however the buyer fell through the next day.

I submitted it to BAT and 8 days later and I am still waiting to be assigned an auction specialist so they can create the draft listing. They even had the link to the C&B listing to get the ball rolling. Apparently they are overwhelmed with submissions.

 

Sorry to hear that. I'm surprised that C&B didn't try to mediate a sale for you with the second highest bidder. My BaT ad took FIVE WEEKS from the acceptance to final publishing of the ad. And yes they are definitely overwhelmed. However, at $99 per listing plus 5% auction fee ( minimum of $250 and maximum of $5000) why would they expand their resources if they are "selling" everything they can anyway? Hang in there. They do an excellent job structuring the ad and their following is huge. As an aside, my sale is still not totally consummated. I've been paid, but I now have the car, title, paperwork and the money. Apparently my buyer's shipping company ran into an unforeseen delay in Chicago and have pushed the pickup date into next week. So we wait! Oh, by the way, only the final day ( if not the last 10 minutes) of the bidding carry any weight, so prepare for the "ride".

 

Last week I was following a Jensen Interceptor on BAT. I had actually traveled to go see it months ago but the condition turned out that it really was a much bigger project than I had the bandwidth for, plus it turned out they were asking way too much for it given the repairs needed. After several days on BAT, there were still no serious bids, just a few of those people that tend to throw up low bids on everything knowing that they have little chance of getting the car and even less chance of getting hurt at that price if they do. (Just check the bid history on your early bidders and you may see they've never bid seriously on anything and never won anything). With one day left, there were still no serious bids, but also, there weren't even very many comments so I thought perhaps it was somehow flying under the radar. That seller was a dealer with a warehouse full of classic cars so to them it was just business, but I can imagine if an individual were selling a car and there was so little activity right up to the next to last day, he wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

I planned to log in the final day thinking if was still at bargain basement level, i.e. still cheap enough to pay somebody to do the work on it, then I'd toss in a bid. However, knowing what they wanted for it months earlier I suspected that the reserve was going to be set too high. By the time I got free at work the next day, it was already past bargain level, so I just sat back and watched while I ate lunch. As I suspected, it didn't meet reserve and its still listed in their inventory. But indeed, the serious bidders didn't come out of the woodwork till the last two hours.

In contrast, a friend of mine sold his Toyota Supra on BAT a week ago. I had actually put the winning bidder in contact with him a couple of weeks before the auction but by that time he already had an agreement with BAT, had paid for professional photos and was just waiting for the auction to go live. The buyer that I had sent to him hadn't ever bought anything like this before, didn't know any bidding strategies and so when the auction went live, he and an anonymous bidder just started going after it seriously from the first day. So I guess sometimes it happens that way too that seller can sleep quite soundly the whole week.

 

What exactly are you selling?

 

Probably this, based on his Public Profile and the fact that he posted only 1 new thread:


Good luck with that price.

 

2008 XJ Super V8: https://carsandbids.com/auctions/rEY...ar-xj-super-v8

Little nervous with the no reserve auction however with them having such a following it should do ok.

 

Price on here was for attention which it seems to be getting. Of course I would work with the right buyer!

I actually bought the LWB model for measurements to start making quality aftermarket performance parts for these cars, physical and tuning services eventually.

 

BAT sale prices keep going up and there are more exotic cars for sale. It's slightly depressing that some Jaguars sell for the lowest prices on the site. I contacted them about my other Jaguar which is a close to perfect, low mileage 06 XK8. Got turned down because of "condition of car" which didn't make sense. Am going to try again next spring but only if I can set a reserve. C&B sounds interesting. Plan to check it out. Have the usual problem of owning both an X100 (NA) and X150 (SC). The rare color x100 looks great and gathers dust. The 07 XKR looks great and gets driven all the time.

 

I, too, appreciate the comparison of listing experiences between the two, but I think it's also worth comparing the buying experiences. I've purchased a vehicle from both, and while I admit the nuts and bolts of the buying experience isn't all that different, the shopping/browsing experience is miles apart. I understand whatever part of that experience that comes from greater user input is due to BaT's greater popularity, but even ignoring those numbers, I find its format/layout far more user friendly.