I sold a 90’ Fire Mountain frame in MBUK in about 93’ - my parents got so fed up with answering the phone for that! I think they counted 60 calls!Remember the classified ads in the back of mbuk? Scouring the ads and sending a cheque off into the ether without even a photo and waiting for that miraculous delivery of a part in good working order a week or two later.
Postage is an issue for sure, but cycling is seeing social divide widen just like everything else, most people I see riding are on ebikes or silly money bikes, even the more expensive retro bikes cost relatively little compared to new stuff .. however as people have said we most of us have several, building more etc is a luxury.. for me I keep looking here, joining in with chats etc.People were asking too much for what some stuff was. Lots of us have also been around here for years and have built what they wanted to or indeed have space for. When I started here prices were reasonable, then more people started to realise what their old stuff was worth on here and prices went up. Loads bought at those prices but are now trying to sell for the same in a very different market. It’s not unlike the housing market.
Postage prices have gone way up. Stuff that used to cost £2 to send, now costs £4. I think that really affected small part sales.
I think the more we chat about the healthy side i.e planning rides , builds of real world bikes as I have been splitting my builds with , more affordable aspects of the hobby the better, and using them not all this wallhanger nonsense the better.I personally dont. I tried facebook, but im not in this for money and tbh the waste of time on that platform just became a pita.
For every thing I sold I probably got 1 scammer and 20 "is this still available" (read "im only pressing this button because I'm a time waster with nothing better to do than be a pain") requests.
I gave up ebay when they decided to become an unlicensed bank and tbh, the stuff i sell is often low value, so its not worth it imho.
So...I am only selling on here....and....I see it as helping out a community of interested people first.
What's worrying about the obvious slowdown is that its a insidious creature, because the more I dont sell the more I won't be bothered to list....the more that doesn't get listed, the less people will look. That's no good for the forum in general. The sales page may well be the life blood of the site? Im not sure, but the lack of sales does seem to be going hand in hand with a perceived general slowdown in traffic.