EBay and MotorcycleWorld.com Team Up

Brent Plummer
by Brent Plummer
Here's an interesting one -- MotorcycleWorld.com is trying to enable all dealers to upload all their motorcycles for sale (presumably used, but it'd be cool if their new bikes were up there too) to their web site, and have them simultaneously post to EBay. A cool service, if they can get dealers to accept it, which they probably can, as MotorcycleWorld.com is owned by Bell & Howell, who supply dealer inventory management software to much of the industry.

You can read the release, but it's mostly full of fluff ("There's nothing like cruising down an open,uninhabited highway on a powerful machine..."), but the gist of it is that it seems EBay will be hosting the auctions in their motorcycle section.

What we're wondering is whether or not motorcycle auctions are what you're looking for? In our last survey, we asked whether readers wanted an auction service here @MO, and the feedback wasn't positive. Looking at EBay's motorcycle section, we see less than 500 bikes, but MO sees over 8,000 posts/month in our crappy old classifieds. Which, yes, we are well aware they're really old, really antiquated and the program hasn't been updated for five years, so no need to point it out.

We wish them luck, as this would be a great way to price shop, especially since the dealers are bound to sell if the minimum price is met, though nothing but dealer peer pressure prevents them from setting the minimum bid really high...

Get Motorcycle.com in your Inbox
Brent Plummer
Brent Plummer

More by Brent Plummer

Comments
Join the conversation
Next