You can greatly influence the value of your bike yourself. For example, if you clean your bike nicely, it's worth more than if it's dirty. If you offer your bike in a small area, it will be worth less than if you offer it worldwide. Below you will find out how you can best increase the value of your bike.

How can I increase the sale value?

Improve condition

If your bike has a flat tire, a broken chain or a broken handlebar tape, you should repair or replace the parts. The effort is low compared to the increase in value that you achieve with it. A bike that's ready to ride is worth significantly more than the same bike when it's not ready to ride.

You should replace such handlebar tape before you offer the bike for sale.

Clean!

It should go without saying, but it's the most effective and easiest way to add value to the bike. Almost everything should be cleaned of dirt with damp cleaning cloths, not just the bicycle frame. Shiny rims and spokes create small visual miracles on your bike. If the bike's chain is clean, then you've done your homework.

Good photos

The importance of the bicycle photos is enormous. Many good and honest photos give the potential buyer more security and a decision to buy is made more quickly. No matter how well you describe your bike, it doesn't help if your photos aren't good. Due to the improvement in photographic technology, only a few descriptions are necessary. Why? On good photos, the individual components can be seen with the naked eye and no longer need to be described.

An example of an excellent photo of a (clean!) Bianchi road bike.

Large radius

You want to sell your very nice and rare bike. For example, if you put it on eBay classifieds without shipping, potential buyers will live within a distance of about 100 km. If you ship your bike worldwide, potential buyers can be over 10,000 km away. This expands your market enormously and you can achieve a much higher sales price. In addition, sales values ​​can vary greatly from region to region. In Australia, some bikes are significantly more expensive than in Germany. For bikes over €1,000, it's often worth selling with the option to ship.

A bike safely packed in a bike box. If the bike is well packed, you can expand your sales radius and send it worldwide.

Right time

The bike shop also has a seasonality. More people in Europe are interested in bikes in the first half of the year than in the second half. The more people are interested in your bike, the higher the selling price you can achieve. Therefore, if you can manage it, you should sell your bike in the first half of the year.