If you have been following this blog, you know that I recently listed and sold my 1967 E-Type Series 1 2+2 on BAT. I thought I would relate my sales experience. All in all, I would give BAT an 8 out of 10. Without a doubt, the stongest plus to using BAT to sell your car is that you will receive international exposure for an incredably modest price of $99. I had over 6000 “views” of my ad during the one week auction period. The BAT Comments section allows a vigorous discussion of the merits (or demerits) of your car. If you are an “active seller” (and I cannot understand why you wouldn’t be) the Comment section gives you a chance to answer questions and, more importantly, post selling points that the BAT system doesn’t recognize. More on that in a minute. So I give BAT an 8 simply because it is an incredably efficient and cost effective way to sell your car. If you are concerned about “tire kickers” showing up, that really doesn’t seem to be a problem. I only had one buyer show up in person to look at the car. But I received numerous inquiries through the Contact Seller button from folks too far away to make an in person visit. Basically, once your ad goes live, there is a Contact Seller icon embedded in the ad that sends an email, via BAT, to you with the potential buyers question and their email address. Obviously once you reply to their email, they also have your email. Not being a privacy freak, this did not bother me one bit. I had some pleasant conversations offline via email and several phone calls.
Some kind soul laid down a $50K bid on the first day of the auction, which was just below my reserve and gave me confidence that good things were going to happen as the auction progressed. Yes, you are allowed to set a Reserve price for your sale. You can actually reduce your reserve if neccesary but in my case, that was not required.
So why do I not give BAT a 10? Two things really. First, their platform has been tremendously successful, especially during the pandemic. I see that they have gone from auctions 5 days a week to 7 days a week. And there are more cars each day. I listed a car several years ago and my Auction Manager was pretty hands on during the process. This time, my Auction Manager, although professional, only contacted me when he needed something. Are the Auction Managers overloaded? I don’t know but I sort of got that impression. Associated with this situation is that BAT seems to have an auction ad format that is somewhat fixed. I understand, for liability reasons, they can only comment upon what they can see in the photos, etc. So their ads come off as a little dry and rote. My solution (not unique) is to jump in with your own ad content on the first day of the auction. Post it in the comments and keep coming back to it if need be. In my case, I could refer folks to my website. So this is only a drawback if you let it be.
My other quibble is with photos. I carefuly curated over 150 photos prior to submitting my ad. I gave them file names with an alpha-numeric format that should have been dirt simple for any file manager to organize. But as my Auction Manager kept asking me crazy (to me) questions about the photos, he acknowledged that the photos were “jumbled”. WTF? He spent several days organizing the photos as he saw fit. “There may be a perfectly logical answer for this but if BAT has come to this point without being able to suggest for all to use a file naming convention that avoids this issue, let’s just say I’m shocked.
BAT is popular and Etypes seem to be coming through about every other day. Although the initial submission of my car was accepted within 2 hours, it took about 6 weeks before my ad went live. Good things come to those that wait, I guess.
As I write this, the successful bidder has wired me the funds, I have sent him the signed and notarized title, and the transporter is scheduled to pick up the car in the next few days. No drama there, thank goodness.
Finally, I shot a lot of video, using a GoPro on a selfie stick. Not professional, just the way I would have talked to a prospective buyer if they were there in person. I think this is the way to go to help build confidence in your car.
Stay tuned. I will be selling my next car on BAT. I think they are the way to go.
2025 Update- This same car was listed by the current owner on BAT in spring of 2025. I helped the owner with the sale. Actually, I was listed as the Seller. I will note several massive improvements with the BAT experience. The main thing is that they were much more responsive. Turnaround from initial submittal to the car “going live” was less than 3 weeks. This came as a welcome surprise after my prior experiences. Fortunately, I had coached the owner with all the things that he should do in advance of even submitting the car for sale. We had a complete set of photos lined up ready to go. We had videos ready to go. (Why some folks get caught in the 5th day of the auction with no videos posted is beyond me!) We had a reserve in mind. They pushed back a little on our number but ultimately accepted it. I had coached him that you needed to not be “out of town” when the auction was live. I had 2 “edit cycles” with the ad content. Most of the comments we made were incorporated without any hassle. I get a chuckle. BAT will apparantly not use the word “restoration” in an ad. It can only be a “refurbisment”! The auction week went well. I was able to respond to all the comments. We got a substantial number of “eyeballs on the car”. It ultimately did not meet reserve but it was a tough time at that point, due to national economic downturn. Again, I was pleased with the BAT part of the process. Kudos to them for their improvements.
New Hill Garage 
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