Almost any motorcycle dealer, be it Kawasaki, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Triumph, Ducati etc. etc.,will have a small mountain of NOS (New Old Stock) spares in their stores. Accumulated sometimes over decades, these often obscure pieces are only now finding their way back onto the market, thanks in many ways to Ebay.

In some respects Ebay is ideally suited to buying and selling these type of items, although it is not without its shortcomings for both buyer and seller. Firstly most motorcycle manufacturers now have spares catalogues that run to many millions and most parts are model specific.This presents the first problem, as what are the chances of any particular part being listed on Ebay under an auction format when anybody actually needs it? The answer of course is using a shop inventory to cheaply list and browse all available items for longer periods of time.

However this creates another problem, because inventory items are now not so easy to find on standard Ebay searches, it requires quite considerable skill, time and often luck on the part of the buyer to track parts down. Of course once buyers get to grips with the existence of shop inventories being seperate they will probably find what they are looking for, but especially if they have a part number it is worth remembering to use this or other key words in a title and description search.

Which brings me to the next problem, part numbers! Almost all parts are only marked with part numbers and until recently it was virtually impossible for even dealers to back reference them even to one model, let alone all fitments. Although that has now changed with many cross reference sites and CD Roms available on the internet, it can still be difficult to trace some parts. From a buyers point of view it can also be difficult to trace part numbers for their machine, but persevere because those resources are out there, for free, sometimes they can be hard to find though.

Tips for buyers:

1. Find a site with online fiches for your machine and obtain the part numbers you need, then use thin along with all the possible variations of your model machine in searches.

2. Use advanced searches, especially titles and description searches, but also completed auctions, for ended, but unsold items.

3. Save favorite searches, to catch parts as soon as they are listed. 

4. If you see parts you might need in an auction format, buy them, they will usually be a fraction of their normal price.

Tips for Sellers:

1. Use a shop inventory starting with a near to(75% perhaps) retail price for your item, perhaps with a best offer option.

2. Reduce your price by perhaps 20% per month until it finds its value to sell. If you disclose this to your buyers you will in effect create a sort of reverse auction, your watchers have to decide when to jump in and buy before somebody else does.

3. List with as many model keywords in the title, perhaps leaving out the motorcycle make and item name if space is a premium.

4. Find yourself some software or a site online that will identify all the fitments for each part and list this in your description along with details of all part numbers for the item.

5. If you have lots of small cheap items(bulbs, seals, gaskets etc. etc.) list these in auction format to bring people into your shop.