Are Dealers Invading the Online Auction Space?
Online car auctions have been going on for a long time. EBay Motors launched in April of 2000. By 2006, eBay announced it had sold its 2 millionth passenger vehicle. Many eBay Motors cars were, and still are, classics. But given all the variables in a classic car purchase (high cost, physical location, authenticity, correct parts, condition, rust), bidding online carried a certain amount of risk.
It wasn’t until the 2010s that curated, enthusiast-driven online car auction platforms established themselves. Bring a Trailer started its auctions in 2014, and flourished during the pandemic years as car prices rose, live events took a pause, and people were stuck at home with money to spend. Other platforms popped up (including Hagerty Marketplace), and we currently track results from 14 separate online auction sites in the U.S., U.K., and EU. Some have been more successful than others, but in general online auctions have become a trusted and established component of the collector car industry. So established, in fact, that another element of the industry—classic car dealers—make up an increasingly large share of the listings on these sites.
Does this trend mean that dealers, who are in business to make a profit, are eventually going to flood sites like Bring a Trailer and Cars & Bids? That you’ll no longer be able to find a deal, and that peer-to-peer transactions on these platforms are going away?
Before anyone rings the alarm bell, it helps to zoom out. Spiffy visuals and the ability to source some very special rides may put dealers in the online limelight, but like with anything on our screens, perception and reality may not necessarily be the same thing. Dealers, of course, have been around way longer than the Internet, and far more cars are sold privately than at auction, including both live and online.
With the high visibility of online auctions versus a physical showroom, it makes perfect sense that a dealer might want to move inventory that way. The sites we track list a seller as either dealer or private party, and although private parties still make up the majority of sellers, the share of dealers has been ticking upward.
It has been trending that way for a while, but in 2020 many individual sellers turned to online auctions because they had fewer options, and their share of listings increased. The dealers’ share started picking up again in late 2021 and since resumed its upward trajectory. It’s not a sign of business elbowing out the little guy—there remain ample opportunities for private sellers, and for the buyers who’d prefer to deal peer-to-peer—rather, it’s just a sign that this corner of the hobby is still changing and maturing.
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I primarily follow the air-cooled Porsche market with some interest going to the 997.2’s (never the 911 historic low point 996).You have to remember………..these are MASS PRODUCED and to see the huge price increase over say 5 years WAS and IS fueled by these so-called “specialty car” dealers……….some small with many becoming quite large over this 4 to 5 year period. They WILL over pay and sit on cars with the hopes of turning a profit 6 months or even a year later. Once and a while they get caught selling scrap with the hopes the buyer does not know better.
I have been around Porsche since 1977 and to think that today you have to pay well into 6 figures for a late 70’s, 80’s or 90’s 911 (very few specialty 911’s in this period unlike the garbage today) and what could be a huge financial gamble is insane. Bottom line, BaT and many of the dealers on there play a big part if not the sole part in these rising 911 prices in what is truly a short period of time.
Remember, not all of the purchasers of these over-priced air-cooled Porsche’s are aficionado’s of the car and with many being caught up in the hype when a so-called expert dealer screams…………”they will only go up”.
There will be a day of reckoning for the price inflated Porsche market the same as what 2008 did to the muscle car market……….watch and see!
Isn’t the title of the above filler a rhetorical question? Does a bear defecate in the forest?