Comments on: 2009 eBay Motors Master Contest

By: Tom Brown

Tom Brown — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:57:31 +0000

I put my 1974 Suzuki T-500 cafe/rat in the contest, check it out and vote if you like it. You can win a Grand!

By: june2ride

june2ride — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:13:24 +0000

I agree with Genwaylaid. It truly is a last resort place. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been dissapointed with the service. Nevertheless, i still check it out to see if there are any parts on there I need. There are so many places nowadays to get parts, the game has changed. I always wanted to go to sema but don’t want to submit no video.

By: FREEMAN

FREEMAN — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:23:04 +0000

That’s cool. I look forward to seeing who wins and hopefully some of the runner ups as well.

By: todd

todd — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:32:21 +0000

I enjoy Ebay for the fact that I can find stuff there that I can’t find anywhere else. Hard to beat regardless of the price.

Too bad pretty much all the bikes I’ve built with Ebay parts are sold off. It would be hard to do a video of one. Glad to hear that Paul will be judging and not OCC. Congrats for the recognition.

-todd

By: GenWaylaid

GenWaylaid — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:20:08 +0000

While eBay is sometimes the only place to find certain parts, I consider it a source of last resort. Even if a part is listed, your ability to get it depends more on luck than anything else. If you do manage to win an auction, it can be hard to do so for anything like a reasonable price. Then there are high shipping costs because you usually can’t order more than one or two parts from the same source. If you’re looking for custom parts, there’s rarely enough information to figure out before purchasing whether you’ll actually be able to use them.

The bright spots are the eBay stores. Most that I’ve had experience with have been very professional, and all the auctions have “buy it now” options so you don’t have to worry about not getting parts. Of course, eBay stores are basically just regular online stores for which eBay provides a framework. While eBay deserves credit for that, the online auction part of their business is generally a terrible buying experience, especially for small and/or rare items.