How I Sell Cars on Bring A Trailer

What is Bring A Trailer?

So for those that don't know, bringatrailer.com is an auction site that came around after the big eBay hype and has a focus strictly around cars. Really, specialty and classic cars but here's the twist, unlike many all online auction sites that are focused merely around the transaction bring a trailer came to be popular, most likely due to the fact that they added one simple thing underneath every single auction. A comment section.

Well, other auction sites focused around figuring out a way to make the transaction happen within their platform. Bring a trailer decided to take a different route and not even have the transaction happen on their platform at all. They decided to leverage the interest of car enthusiast to make every auction a discussion, as well as an auction.

Bringatrailer.com Main Landing Home Page

This did a couple things: number one, it gave people a reason to return to the site day after day and return to the same vehicle throughout the auction as people commented and replied to their own comments. For a lot of people, it became a fringe social media account.

Number two, it made it really hard for anyone to sell a car and try to pass it off as something it is not. The Internet is full of people from all over the world and if you list a car on Bring A Trailer, there is a strong chance that you will have multiple people commenting that know more about that specific make and model than you'd be able to figure out if you spent a solid month researching that car and visiting every forum on the Internet about that specific car.

I have sold around 75 vehicles on Bring A Trailer so far at the time that I write this. So I am going to give you my opinions on the experience, what mistakes that I have made during my auctions, and what I have found that really helps to spur on the clicks and the bids!

Frankman Motor Company’s Bring A Trailer Profile

The account “Frankols5” being an homage to my grandfather’s cattle business “Frankman Olson Livestock”

Which Cars are Best for Bring A Trailer?

Bring a Trailer has a strong base of visitors that return to its site day after day and has a very high transaction rate compared to most other listing sites. However, if you want to have a strong auction, you better bring the right car.

Bring a trailer has a strong following for euro cars, resto-mods, and anything peculiar or odd. it is probably not the place to list your award-winning muscle car or your lifted diesel pick up. But if you have a Porsche, a retro 4x4 with a modern power plant, or an exotic supercar then Bring A Trailer might be the place for you!

You can take a visit to their site and scroll through the completed listings to get a feel for what type of vehicles they sell best. They pride themselves on having the best of the best; and they have a comment section that makes sure of that!

Submission Process

The submission process on bring a trailer really isn't that bad. They actually have a pretty simplified path to listing your car and if you are listing a model that they have sold a good amount of in the past, they will even display vehicle specific options to help you better identify what exactly your car is! (things like the different wheel options offered on your car in that year or whether or not it has options that the market pays a premium for - like the X50 package on a 996 Porsche 911) You also get assigned a dedicated auction specialist. That is your point of contact at bring a trailer should you need anything throughout the course of your auction, which is another perk.

The main thing that you will be uploading during your submission will be the photos of your car that you are auctioning. This is a sticky point: you need photos. A lot of them. Your photos better be top-notch and potentially even from a professional photographer to make sure that your vehicle is standing on its toes. Bring a Trailer does actually offer a premium listing service for cars where they will actually send a photographer to you and take all the photos necessary for a good auction presentation. In either scenario, you'll want to make sure that your car is looking as good as it ever has, with no outstanding items in need of repair and as good of cleaning as you have ever given it!

The different options when it comes to listing your vehicle on www.bringatrailer.com

Bring a trailer we also ask you a few other questions during your submission process. like what you know about the history of the car from new, a photo of the title to ensure that you are indeed the rightful owner to the car (which is a huge perk of buying on the platform), as well as what outstanding issues or items in need of attention are present on the car. That last one you are going to want to be extra attentive on and do your best to list everything that you can think of that isn't quite perfect on the car you're selling. If you don't, your commentors will! And it won’t be Pretty!

Bring a trailer will ask you if you want a reserve on your car during the submission process. This is another interesting quirk about Bring A Trailer as if they feel that your reserve is too high. They will refuse to list your car. This can be frustrating at times, especially since as the owner of the car that is being sold, you most likely have extreme pride in a vehicle that you believe is the quality needed to be listed on Bring A Trailer.

Don't take this personally, Bring A Trailer has an extremely high sale rate for a reason and aside from the $99 listing fee paid by the seller, the only way that the company makes money is the 5% fee paid by the buyer (which doesn't get paid if the car doesn't sell!). So it is in Bring A Trailer’s best interest to set every auction up for a completed sale.

Your Auction is Live! Now What?

Once once your auction goes live, you're gonna wanna make sure that you are actively monitoring it and replying to comments as soon as you are able to. Never discuss your reserve amount and always remain kind and courteous no matter the situation. You are going to feel like the people commenting are putting you through the ringer a little little bit, that's because they are! Some people take pride in trying to root out every issue of every car listed on Bring A Trailer, and do their best to grind you down if they think something isn't right about your car.

I have had cars that I thought were absolutely perfect. They went on bring a trailer and within an hours there was multiple comments, pointing out serious flaws that completely elapsed me, or that I never would have noticed. It really sucks when it happens to you, but if you were on the other side looking to place a bid and purchase a car, the comments are a gold mine to help you as a resource to know what you are bidding on.

When someone asked you to take photos of an area on the car, do it. If someone asked for a video of the car cold starting, do it. if someone asks to see the convertible top go up and down three times in a row and then you open and close the trunk twice in that specific order, just do it. the one surefire way to grenade your auction is to appear difficult or unwilling as a seller. Just do what people ask and be nice about it. (If someone is being out of line - the people commenting will usually come to your aide). Just be thorough, thorough, thorough. Encapsulate as many things as you can about the car you are selling, test every switch, push every button, take it for a drive, everything you can think of!

Example Video from one of our most recent Bring A Trailer Auctions - I have an expert level photographer and certified car nerd that is full time at my store to take all of our photos and videos; but you can do it yourself with a little research and a full afternoon!

A couple nuanced things to note about how notifications work as a seller. Every time you post a picture, everyone who is "watching" the auction will get a notification texted to their phone. this is a powerful tool to understand, especially when the last few hours of the auction are upon you.

The other big perk about the way Bring A Trailer auctions work is how they end. Most every auction is a seven day auction, which gives people time to discover that your cars for sale, research anything they need to, and create conversations and comments that lead to shares and excitement. However, most of the bidding happens in the last two minutes.

Bring A Trailer employs the use of "soft close”: where, if a bid is placed in the last two minutes of an auction, the timer resets two minutes. The timer will reset two minutes with each bid until there is no one left to bid. I have seen auctions that have gone on for 15 to 30 minutes AFTER the designated end time. All due to bidders battling it out until one emerges triumphantly!

Auction Close & Post Sale Transaction

This is the part that may seem a little strange compared to other auction sites out there. Bring A Trailer actually wants no part in the actual transaction. They take their 5% buyers fee off the credit card of the buyer and that's where they call it quits.

As soon as the auction ends, both the seller and the winning bidder, get an email with the other person’s contact information. It is then up to the seller and the buyer to come to an agreement of how to transfer the funds, how the paperwork is to be made out, and the delivery of the car will take place. There is no standard. There really isn't a guidebook. It is up to the two parties to work it out amongst themselves.

And yes, I have had several winning bidders flake out and ghost after the auction.

Bring A Trailer is usually very helpful in these situations, but they can't force anyone to buy a car. They will usually ban the winning bidder and then connect you with the next highest bidder. So on and so forth until there is a resolution.

The Comment and Bid Section of our 1972 GMC K1500 that sold earlier this year on Bring A Trailer.

Final Thoughts

Bring A Trailer is a wonderful place to sell cars. It puts your vehicle in the limelight for seven days. In front of millions of people that otherwise may never see your car for sale. After establishing that your car is the right fit for bring a trailer, you just have to play by their rules, work your tail off, and hope for the best.

Auctions are a gamble, no matter where they are, but I have found with Bring A Trailer the more work you put into your listing the more you usually get. Yes, sometimes they will still fizzle out and you will have to find a different way to sell your car. However, I have also had auctions explode and my car bring more money than I ever could have dreamed of!

If you are thinking of listing your car on Bring A Trailer, my recommendation would be to start watching as many auctions as you can of cars that are similar: take notes of what the commentors are saying and what the sellers are doing. Create a small list of do’s and dont’s and if you are feeling confident, submit your car and give it a try!