Where to post your ads
The most effective place to post your MGB for-sale ad is on the web. This may sound obvious, but it is helpful to point out that an MGB is not a "general-use" or "general-interest" vehicle like a modern car or minivan. Printing some flyers and posting them around town is almost certain to be a fruitless exercise. Similarly, putting a "for sale" sign on the vehicle itself is very unlikely to produce results. Out of the last four or five MGBs we've personally sold, the closest buyer lived about 400 miles away and the farthest buyer was over 4000 miles away. This is not unusual.
Post your ad to one of the many popular sites on the web that carry for-sale listings for cars. Sites like craigslist, kijiji, eBay and a few others are the most popular sites for MGB for-sale listings. Those are the places where someone wanting to buy an MGB will look.
NA Spec MGB's Current Listings database compiles listings from craigslist, kijiji, eBay, and many more, then thoroughly analyzes and categorizes the listings to create a comprehensive listing of online MGB for-sale listings throughout North America. When you post your ad online on any of the popular for-sale websites, your ad will be automatically included in NA Spec MGB's Current Listings within 24 hours.
Give buyers the information they need
Very few buyers will follow-up on an ad that doesn't make clear what it is selling. There are hundreds of other ads out there with complete descriptions and that is what your ad is "competing" against. If your ad doesn't have a complete description, buyers will quickly move on and look at your "competitor's" ad. To sell your car in an effective manner, it is essential to have the following bits of information:
Model Use the standard terms "MGB" or "MGB-GT". If your buyer is not using NA Spec MGB's Current Listings to find your listing then he or she will probably be searching on the Internet and he or she will probably search for "MGB" or "MGB-GT" and not "MG B" or "MGB/GT" or other non-standard references. Also, there is no such thing as an "MGB Midget"! It's either an MGB or an MG Midget - they are different models. (Yes, you know that, but you'd be surprised at the number of sellers who don't!)
Year Spell out the year (e.g. "1973") and make sure you don't make a typo. Buyers looking for an MGB may feel quite differently about a 1963 vs. 1973 MGB or a 1973 vs. 1978 MGB. One little number can make a big difference. If your MGB is a 1974, be sure to let buyers know if it is a "1974" with chrome bumpers or a "1974 1/2" (or "1974.5") with rubber bumpers.
Asking Price Many buyers will not follow-up on an ad that only says "Best Offer". Name your price. If your price is firm, say so. If there's a possibility for a little wiggle room in your price there is no need to say "obo" ("or best offer") - most buyers are aware that most sales of cars involve a little give-and-take.
City If your town is not so well-known, it's okay to use a regional reference ("south of Atlanta" or "northeast New Hampshire")
State
If you can provide the following information, it can be helpful to buyers:
mileage (or "kilometerage")
Vehicle Identification Number ("VIN")
status of title (clear? bill-of-sale only?)
exterior color (this is essential if you are not including pictures)
interior color
If your car has been restored, refurbished, rebuilt, or repainted, let potential buyers know - in the clearest language possible - what was done and when. "Repainted in 2005" or "engine rebuilt 5,000 miles ago" or "new tires with 200 miles on them" is great. "New interior" is okay, but spelling-out whether you're talking about the carpets, seats or panels (or all of those) is better. Be aware that while some buyers may be looking for cars with new paint or a rebuilt engine or a new interior, other buyers will be looking for a car that is in original, unmodified, "un-updated" condition.
If your car has any of the following attributes, features or options, let your potential buyers know:
overdrive
non-stock engine (e.g. "2.8 liter Ford V6")
non-stock transmission (e.g. "GM R700")
hard top (OEM*?)
leather seats (don't be confused, the OEM seats in MGBs after 1969 are not leather)
air conditioning (OEM? Note that "OEM" air conditioning was dealer-installed, not factory-installed)
Pictures that are worth a thousand words
It is very difficult to sell a car in an online listing without providing some pictures. It only takes a few minutes to snap some pictures and upload them. If you don't own a digital camera, try to borrow one so you can include some pictures with your ad. Pictures often will make the difference between selling your car and not selling it.
Craigslist, kijiji and other free sites generally allow you to post four pictures. Four is all you need as long as you take pictures of the right stuff. If you are posting to a site that allows more pictures, it never hurts to show more - and larger - pictures (though it may cost you a little more). If you have the web skills and resources to post the pictures on your own site then do so (with thumbnails and "click to enlarge" versions) and link to those pictures from your for-sale listing.
Whenever you take pictures of a car for the purposes of selling it, try to do the following:
Park the car in front of a pleasant, uncluttered background. A golf course is ideal.
Keep the sun at your back while you take the pictures so the car is well-lit and not in shadows. This sometimes means moving the car around in the middle of your photo session so you can snap pictures of other angles. In these examples, the sun was filtered by clouds and trees, so we didn't need to move it to snap shadow-free pictures of the different angles.
Fill the picture's frame with the car. It's important for buyers to see the car, not the surroundings.
If, for some reason, you can only take one picture, take a shot like this with the top down (unless, of course, you are selling an MGB-GT!). This single point-of-view shows a buyer most things they want to know. You can see that this car is white with a black interior, has the '73/'74 type grille (missing its emblem), has Rostyle wheels, and is basically presentable and undamaged.
The essential exterior shot:
Ideally, you would include at least two or three more pictures. Here are examples shown more-or-less in order of importance.
An interior shot showing the dash, seats, and interior panels:
A shot of the engine compartment showing the carbs:
A shot of some other part of the car showing the condition of the car. The trunk is a good place to look when buying an MGB, so as a seller you may as well show it off to buyers even if, as in this example, it's dirty and a little rusty. The trunk doesn't need to be completely empty as long as buyers can see the general condition of it:
If your car has unusual features that you want to show off (as opposed to the unusual squirrel bite marks "feature" on the steering wheel of this car (no joke!)), show a picture of it. This car has its original AM radio and it still works:
Selling to a distant buyer
Selling to a buyer 4000 miles away does not have to be very different from selling to a buyer in your town. The basic idea is the same: the buyer pays for the car and then drives it away. For a distant buyer, payment might not be in person. And it might be a hired vehicle shipper who takes the car away.
Getting paid:
Getting paid in cash is always the simplest method. If a buyer will be picking up the car in person, cash is the preferred method of payment. Some buyers will not be picking the car up in person, so how do you do it? Besides cash, the only foolproof ways to get paid are by PayPal or by wire transfer. PayPal is "a global leader in online payment solutions" and is the primary payment processing solution for the eBay Internet auction site. In some circumstances, there may be fees involved in accepting payments through PayPal.
Wire transfer is the preferred method for international payments. There is usually little or no charge to accept a wire transfer. Call your bank and ask them what fees there are to accept a wire transfer and what information you need to give to your buyer. Your buyer must contact his bank for similar information, usually a simple form to fill out. If your bank will charge you a fee, you can ask the buyer to pay the fee. The wire transfer form from the buyer's bank will likely have a section titled "Foreign Bank Charges" (or similar) with checkboxes for indicating whether charges are "paid by recipient" or "paid by sender".
Be aware that it is possible to create fraudulent bank drafts or cashier's checks and that a fraudulent draft or check may not be detected until weeks or even months after the draft or check has been deposited and cleared by your bank. Though most people have never done a wire transfer, they are very easy to do; we are not aware of any reason that a buyer might legitimately need to use a bank draft of cashier's check instead of doing a wire transfer. We recommend that you do not accept bank drafts or cashier's checks under any circumstances.
Shipping arrangements: Buyers should make their own shipping arrangements. There are many reputable shippers who handle cross-country and international shipping of cars, so your buyer should easily be able to find one that fits his requirements. Again, a simple web search will provide plenty of suitable results.
Buyers might ask you, as seller, to make the shipping arrangements, but unless you have extensive experience in shipping cars, this doesn't make sense. Because there are shippers catering to every country, there is little or no linguistic barrier for buyers to worry about. Your buyer should be able to make his own arrangements - in his own language - without much trouble. Your buyer doesn't need to be familiar with your country. As long as your buyer has the address where the car is located, your buyer has all the information a shipper will need to pick up the car and get it on its way.
Shipping a car within one country may cost a few hundred to a thousand dollars or more. Shipping a car to another country is, of course, more expensive. Very broadly speaking, shipping a car from the US to Europe costs a couple of thousand dollars.
