What a parts seller goes through

I feel compelled to tell the behind the scenes story of what parts sellers go through to get an item that others would like to have for thier project. I feel like I can sorta be considered an expert on this subject since I have parted over 45 Mavs/Comets since 2003.

It starts out with the search for a car, lots of time searching craigslist,ebay, autotrader (remember that?)putting wanted ads out. Then there is communicating with the person that has the car, believe me there are some really strange individuals that you run into but there are some that are very smart and a pleasure to meet. Very few people have ever gave me a description that suited the car once I got there.

Sometimes getting there means a couple days on the road. One time I won a car on ebay for $.99 cents but had to drive 9 hours one way to pick it up and to top it off I had to pull a trailer over a mountain pass that just had a snow storm. Which brings up the subject of fuel and motel room sometimes. On occasions I have got to the car and looked at it and well lets just say there was not enough money in it to pay the expenses but thats part of the game I have only lost money on a couple cars though.

Okay now you have got the car home time to go to work, out come the tools and let the fun begin. Sometimes you have to buy a tool, torx 45 and 55 come to mind and panel remover tools. Crap that bolt wont come loose time to break out the torch, oh man out of oxygen again time to go to the distributor to get tank filled. Now you have fenders, hoods,bumpers,grills and all that stuff laying around that you have to deal with.

Time to get the stuff cleaned up, wash the parts check out thier condition, clean and paint rusty bumper brackets and other stuff like that, make everything as nice as possible, there was a time when I spent hours painting, cleaning and buffing everything but I got caught up in selling too much and didnt have time to do everything I wanted and people would pay the same reguardless of condition.

Okay now you have all this stuff to sale time to take pictures, make descriptions and get it listed. Thats the easy part now somebody wants a fender, ugh time to make a box. I buy cardboard in bulk in 36x48 sheets and tape by the sleeve scrounge bubble wrap and peanuts and any other packing material I could find. Get the measurements for a box needed to ship a fender, takes about 6 sheets of cardboard and an hour to make a box and pack the fender in it. Smaller items are much easier

Time to get a price for shipping, sit down at the computer check USPS UPS (Fed Ex before they screwed me) no Greyhound close. I would make the boxes as condensed as possible because sometimes an inch bigger than it needed to be would be $20.00 extra and I didnt want buyer to have to pay that. If the truth be known the buyer never paid for the packing material and cardboard I always figured that was part of the sale.

Thens once its packed its time to take it to shipping agent 10 miles away usually take them within 2 days of being paid for so buyer can have his part as fast as possible, I know I dont like to wait for parts. Then back to the computer and notify buyer of tracking number or at least let him know it has been shipped

Now what do you do with that shell of a car with no rearend or steering on it, momma getting upset its sitting there, (I have a 30 day limit) luckily never been hassled by county authorites. Call the son up and have him come get it, drag it on trailer or however whatever works. Then its time to clean up oil,anti freeze,tranny fluid

Hopefully through all this you havent got something in your eye, smashed your finger or foot or hurt your back cut your finger get nasty gas spilled on you.

I know there is more that can be said that is involved, but heck if I didnt enjoy it I wouldnt do it. I quit for a little over a year but missed it so I am starting again but in a much smaller scale, with back all screwed up it is much harder to do but it is like therapy to me.

Prices of parts cars have gone up and are far less of them around.

I know there are some other sellers on here that can relate to this and there are some sellers on here that take cleaning up and refurbishing parts to an extreme level

 

Well written. Takes alot of time and effort doesnt it?
I sold those die cast mav models recently on here for example. Now these are new in box items obviously so a bit different. However my wife was laughing at me trying to organize packaging and shipping 7or8 items. Keeping track of who gets which one. Finding packaging,boxes etc. It takes way more time than one would think and that was nice clean new items off a store shelf.

 

Your hard work was much appreciated Mike. You probably worked harder on my car than I did.

 

mike, i believe i have bought from you before on ebay. at least i think so because i have a box with two door panels sent from Tillamook sitting in my garage. thanks for going through all the hassle to send it overseas. much appreciated!

when i passed through tillamook on vacation last may i looked out for any maverick but didn't see one. we had lots of fun passing idiotville and getting to rockaway beach. here's a photo taken by me in garibaldi: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/54964150 what a beautiful area you live in...

 

Finding boxes is the biggie for me. I have a bunch of parts to sell, but no boxes. And most buyers dont want to pay for priority shiping, which is the only one that gets free boxes. Then those only fit certain items. Even the local companies dont have boxes anymore, since there's a recycling company that buys all their excess carboard.

 

a lot of the reasons that I don't do it...people are all the time suggestioning this to me...

...it must be something ...you want/love to do...
...when I buy a $20 part at the J/Y and ask $30 for it, they think I'm making $10...

...:Handshake...

 

AMEN! ... well written

The one thing I would add is about taking pictures. A good picture will sell a part a lot quicker than a bad one .... good lighting, no clutter in the background, accurately showing the condition and flaws is a skill unto itself.

Getting boxes .... I have a bit of an edge there. I work as a service rep for retail products. One job takes me into Lowes several days out of the week, and I can snag large useful boxes from time to time. Still hit or miss. Then you get to store them for months until you need them ...

Then play engineer to reshape them to the actual size you need ....

I, too, have every bit of bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts that comes here, squirrelled away, to be reused. A very cool new packing material out there is plastic "pillows". They come in many sizes, are very light, but they are bulky to store. Some come in sheets that are ready to tear into the exact size you need.

 

Without the parts salvagers there wouldn't be much of a Maverick/Comet hobby. :Handshake As it is, we can get everything we need.

 

That's why I don't do it, I don't have enough time to do what I do for a living as it is.
For the guys that do, it's much appreciated!

 

I greatly appreciate the trouble that sellers go through to provide us with the parts we need. I needed good usable body replacement parts and, being from Pennsylvania, I'm just not going to find much in a junkyard around here anymore, so I had to go through a warmer climate to get the mostly rust free parts that I needed. I bought a bunch of body pieces from Rick Brooks and, I can see in packaging alone, that it wasn't always easy to get these parts safely to PA from TX.

 

Too true! I had it good at my old job, boxes galore. For large boxes you should try your local John Deere dealer. They get stock orders in these nice heavy duty boxes on a cardboard skid. I have butchered many of these to make custom boxes. I also had access to a shipping stapler and that made building boxes nice.

 

Luckily working at the dealer our parts dept goes through a lot of boxes. Problem is everyone in the dealer knows it. You gotta be fast on stock order day.

 

I would add:

- Parts storage. When I get a car in, I fully disassemble the car. Every part is marked and/or tagged as to what it is and what car it came off of. Parts are then stored in one of (3) of my garages. I have parts stored that I have had for 20 years. Eventually, it seems, somebody will want it. These parts also have to be organized in some fashion. I would say half of my part are extremely organized, the other half is a "pile in the corner"

- Parts removal. Even though it might be a small little part, clip, etc,...sometimes it will take hours to get it off because of where it is located on the car. Buyers need to keep this in mind when they ask for a part. While it might be a small part, imagine the TIME that was saved by you since you did not have to go out to the junkyard and spend hours taking all kinds of parts off just to get to the part YOU wanted. (For example: windshield wiper motor). As Mike stated, sometimes parts removal requires a special tool. These tools cost money.

- Boxes. I probably have at least 100 boxes stored away. This includes tiny little boxes all the way up to weed wacker boxes. I probably have at least 20 weed wacker boxes here. These are not "broke down" flat for easy storage. These are ready to have items placed in them. So...storing these boxes takes up lots of space.

- Packing. These parts don't pack themselves. As Mike stated, it can sometimes take hours just to box something up. Sometimes my hands hurt from crumpling up newspaper...trying to fill a huge box with enough paper so that the part arrives safely.

- Getting the box to the shipper. These parts don't drive themselves to the post office or UPS store. I am probably 20 miles from the nearest UPS store. The Post Office here in my town doesn't open until 8:30 (I am at work) and closes at 4pm (I am still at work), so getting to these places can be a task in itself.

- Parts "lookers". I would say half of the people who contact me never buy the part. They want a price on the part, they want pictures of the part, they want a shipping quote, they say they are going to send you a money order in two weeks when they get paid. Never hear from them again.

- I ask questions. When somebody asks me for a part, I ask them what is wrong with theirs. It could be what they really think they want...they don't really need. Maybe I can tell them how to fix what they have.

Yes....we make money selling these parts, but it is not our "job". We do this as a hobby. Family and real jobs come first, so please keep that in mind.

 

I think one of the highlites of parting a car is pulling the backseat and finding lost treasures and money, I have a jar that is full of change, one of these days I will figure out how to clean it so it will all be usable

Another thing I failed to mention is communicating with the buyer and making sure he is getting a part that will fit his car, a lot of times they want will not work for them, bucket seat tracks for a cat. car,spoiler for a 74 and up without small bumper conversion, speedo cluster that isnt plug and play the list goes on and on.

That takes some experience from parting different years of cars and of course this forum as anything you need to know about our cars can be found here

I appreciate each and everyone of you that contribute your knowledge for everybody to learn, I spend way too much time here but it is my addiction and better than most addictions that people have.

As far as getting cardboard if you check with your shipper they usually can get you cardboard fron B line and they have a scoring tool that perforates a line and makes the cardboard fold in a nice line, well worth the investment if you do a lot of shipping, also handy to have at Christmas time for making boxes

 

I certainly appreciate all of you that take the time to provide the parts service for our hobby. Mike great work explaining the other side of the business.