I think it’s safe to say that the majority of The Autopian staff watch auction sites like hawks. I probably check sites like BringATrailer.com and CarsAndBids.com about a dozen times every day, even though I’m in absolutely no position to purchase a car right now.
Why? Well, if my bosses are reading this, it’s because, as an auto journalist, it’s supremely important to be aware of current market conditions and pricing for significant vehicles, to be better informed as a writer of said vehicles.
But really, the main reason I’m constantly on these sites is that I like to dream. To think to myself, “Man, it sure would be cool to own a Toyota Mega Cruiser or a 2003 Ford Taurus with 15,000 original miles.” So I click through the pictures, imagining a scenario where I’m driving the car and enjoying myself. There’s no harm in that, right?
If you’re reading this site, chances are you’re a lot like me. If that’s true, boy, do I have the job for you.
Be The Leader Of The Auctioneers
Bring a Trailer and Cars And Bids might be the biggest online car auction platforms, but they’re not the only online auction platforms out there. There are smaller platforms, like PCar Market, Collecting Cars, and BarnFinds.com, that have carved out small portions of the market. Hell, even Supercar Blondie has an auction site (there are currently eight cars up for bidding on the site, which is way more than I expected).
Hagerty, a car insurance provider that, in recent years, has expanded into the automotive media and events sector, also has an auction site. Launched in 2022, it’s called the Hagerty Marketplace, and in addition to cars, you’ll also find a healthy amount of rare parts of memorabilia up for sale. Hagerty Marketplace is where that 1,300-car barn find collection, known as The Generous Collection, was sold back in October.
Okay, onto the job. Hagerty is looking to hire an Editor of Online Auction Listings, a title that spells out the responsibilities of the work as plainly as possible. Your main role, as you’ve probably guessed, will be to lead a team and manage a team of auction listing writers. Like any editor, you’ll be responsible for holding those writers to a certain editorial standard and making sure each listing is accurate and presented according to Hagerty’s expectations. As the auction editor, you’ll also have to approve every listing before it gets published.
Because you’ll be in a leadership position, Hagerty also wants you to create and maintain a “comprehensive internal guidebook” for auction writers to reference when creating new listings, communicating with sellers, obtaining the correct photos, and even a guide for resolving conflicts with buyers and/or sellers. You’ll be the person pulling the strings.
As for the job details, Hagerty doesn’t list a pay scale, but notes the job is fully remote, which is nice. The only bad news is you’ll need some experience—five years of working in the online auction field, specifically. If you don’t have that, you should definitely have a “deep understanding of digital-first automotive auction platforms and the current industry landscape,” which should be easy if you’re as obsessed with watching cars sell online every day as I am.
Top graphic image: Hagerty, DepositPhotos.com
I do watch these auction sites like a hawk and have bought and sold several cars on BaT. I started watching Hagerty’s auctions because of the recent Jason Cammisa video with the RS4. They need a little help. For one, their buyer’s premium is 7%, so there’s basically no incentive to buy from their site if there’s a similar listing on Bat and C&B, both which have a 5% premium and also a cap of $7500 total fees. I think PCARmarket is also at 5%. I am not certain Hagerty caps their fees. The problem is they are trying to play in a crowded field and there aren’t a lot of eyeballs on their site right now. I hope they succeed, but I don’t think I’ll be a buyer there if I can get my cool cars for less on another platform.
Watching web sites does not an Editor make.
I sold a car on C&B. It was a HORRIBLE experience and I won’t ever do anything on that POS site ever again.
Would love to hear you expand on this further
Half way thru my auction it was sabotaged by a commenter (brand new account) that said he “knew the car and the axel was damaged in an accident”. That was false of course, an obvious attempt to depress the price. After I immediately notified C&B they left the comment up for hours. Bidding had been going well but it immediately fell off a cliff. They wouldn’t do anything to help. They wouldn’t start the auction over. They wouldn’t even change the listing to a featured auction which only would have made more people see it on the splash page. Neither of those things would have cost them a dime.
I got walked up the employee ladder and it was always “We’re still super excited in your auction and think it will go fine blah blah blah.” That was utter BS of course. So not a single bidder from before the offending comment made another bid AFTER the comment. The car came in below the reserve (which is always set on the low end anyway) and C&B made up the difference to have the car sold at the reserve.
For the record it was an expensive car, so there was decent money involved.
I’ll never look at their site again and I can’t imagine why anyone else would either. They suck. End of rant, thank you.
Oh wow, that’s fucked up. Would’ve expected more from their team
I’m both impressed and worried that they are hiring a human to supervise humans doing work an LLM can do competently today.
Note: I’m not advocating the use of LLMs to displace workers. I used to make a living creating, editing, and translating copy. I’m just surprised they would buck the trend and hire humans. Good for them and good luck.
I’m an instructor and curriculum developer, and I have yet to get any “competent” results from an LLM beyond formatting known good information, or simple tasks like “create 20 multiple choice questions from this document”. Even the latter still is only about 70% successful.
I have yet to find a job for an LLM that I couldn’t get a better result from an intern or green instructor.
Humans will create better content, but in so many applications mediocre content is plenty good enough, sadly.
Again, I’m not advocating for LLMs replacing humans or saying they are as good or better. I’m positively surprised by Hagerty’s move here.
I wonder how Hagerty plans to differentiate itself from the gaggle of other BaT clones? One thing BaT sucks at is their writing. Could be an opportunity for another site to shine brighter. Create a story instead of just a listing. Sounds like that won’t be Hagerty though, since the emphasis of the role seems to be boilerplating and efficiency. You need those to do volume, but creativity is probably the only thing that’ll dethrone king BaT
The advantage of Hagerty’s platform is that it’s a “value add” to their Driver’s Club membership.
You already insure the lion’s share of classic car owners/collectors (myself included, their coverage is awesome).
Having a marketplace that’s propped up by their valuation tools helps. Plus, I’m going to trust the platform that’s given me stellar customer service for giving me reliable listings.
I’m fine with the BAT formula for auction text.
In a good auction, the seller will tell the story in the comments.
I dunno. Seems like an auto auction site needs to focus selling cars. Creating a story sounds good but it costs money and doesn’t sound like it would make that much difference. These are cars, not old master paintings.
It’s going to be interesting where these sites go over time.
In the past… 15 months I’ve both sold and bought a car via online auction.
On the car I sold the buyer (as well as the owner of the collector barn he rents) was shocked. The car was MUCH better than they appeared. They were staggered. He was utterly floored by how complete and meticulously organized the documentation was. In the end, he felt the car went too cheap.
I agree. It came down to A) timing (sold in November) and B) the photographer I hired through the contracting service most of the sites used… couldn’t give a shit. I should’ve fired the guy in the first 60 seconds of our interaction. Photos were of good quality, but the composition of the shots was fuck all. He actually refused to take “the money shot” angle of the car, which is THE ANGLE. He also took most of the photos with the top in place, not down.
— —–
The car I bought… I’d say he took better care of it than 85% of owners. No question. The guy did as best as he could, on what he made, with the knowledge he had, and honestly for most people it would be fine. Though it was a great example of how far standards can differ. There was a lot done “for a good price” that ultimately is going to cost 4-6 times as much in the end to “fully correct for the sins of the installers.”
We’re talking PPF that was done THREE TIMES, to have them CUT OUT ON THE CAR, scoring the clearcoat to where it can’t be compounded out. So it went from “good deal” to “double what I could’ve paid for someone competent” to after repainting the hood (and bumper), easily five times what it would’ve cost to have done it right with an experienced installer the first time around.
I’ve got a repair that has to be done again, because again, they focused on lower price. Etc. Moreover, the laundry list I’ve drastically expanded for when it’s going out (in the next week or so) because I expect there’s been lots of trying to shave a few bucks here and there that I’m going to have to deal with now to get it to my standard.
… granted, my standard is insane.
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If anything, I’d say what auction sites could use is a Feedback or Reputation score. I’m aware, they don’t want to piss off their sellers who provide the inventory, but it’s also important to minimize the chance of buyers being disappointed. This is because buyers themselves may have expectations that are too optimistic, as they just don’t have a ton of experience buying vehicles in this manner.
For me? I’m not disappointed! Given the sale price (a steal), it’s fine. In the end, even bringing up to my gold-plated standard of insanity, I still likely came out $10K+ ahead of buying a MUCH nicer car, and I got a DRIVER, not a bubble car.
Though other people aren’t me, and likely would’ve been miffed. Moreover, if you get enough miffed people, they’ll sow dissent. All the major platforms have seen these start to foment, and they should consider a way to start to address this in a way that doesn’t spook sellers, but ensures buyers to better gauge the quality of a seller’s wares.
Feedback systems are a little tricky because most people don’t buy and sell cars at auction often enough to collect much signal.
Over 5 years ago? Sure. Today? I disagree.
There are entire businesses that use a platform as their primary way to transact now. Not just large, experienced dealers, but ragtag amateurs. There are a shocking number of folks, particularly on BaT, who specialize in a specific vehicle or even engine code, who are functionally using said platforms to offset the cost of their hobby.
Think eBay in… 2001 or so. Yes, it’s not today, but the volume is becoming significant enough to where a feedback system can provide value — particularly to buyers.
Huh, interesting, I had no idea.
Yeah, it’s not just randos buying and selling. They’re part of it, but there are some dealers pushing big volume at this point that specialize in collector cars, and are using it to widen their reach.
There are also people who are going from selling as a hobby to becoming specialized dealers who literally specialize in ONE thing. Think something along the lines of Enthusiast Auto Group, but perhaps specializing in just Mercedes-Benz M156 V8 vehicles.
BAT is starting to “eBay” (or Etsy) which is why other markets are popping up. They want to be the next eBay before BAT (or another site) does. BAT still curates its listings, but there’s 130-150 cars a day going up there now, and it’s winter which is a slower season. By comparison, C&B is putting up ~25 cars a day at the moment.
It’s cool that there are people who are really good at solving a particular problem and can use sites like that to make money off of that skill.
Well, that’s the thing. Some people just specialize in selling something they know how to make a buck on. How to hide things. How to make things seem better than it is to an untrained eye.
I bought from one of those sellers, but I also knew better than the seller did, and what they were hiding based on what they showed and HOW they showed it. Granted, I used to sell a ton of stuff, so I had one hell of a trained eye. I also knew how to come in within the final 2 minutes of auction, and absolutely throw down to spook off all the other bidders so I walked away with it while it was still a deal.
I’ll still come out far ahead relative to having bought a nicer car, but 8 months later and I’m still in the process of remediating. It’s getting there, but I knew how much work it needed – as did some other bidders. It went a lot cheaper than nicer ones for a reason, because some people would much rather spend more money than the time.
EDIT: The point here is… the seller wasn’t super forthcoming and genuinely did try to obscure and mask real problems that are not cheap to fix. A feedback system allows that to be called out.
I got blocked by BAT a few months ago. Doing my simi-daily sweep of what I had missed, after going two pages back the page would go no farther. Walked away for a while and have mostly stayed away.
They banned me once for a listing error they made on a car I was selling. Then they banned my other ID for a comment I made on this site about their error.
Woah, was was the comment and how did they find out who you were.
The alt account username was “Totally not Curtis’s alt account.” Rookie mistake.
Totally factual statement that they put the car I was selling in the wrong model category, so it did not show up in a search and did not send email notifications. They acknowledged their error, but did nothing for me. It got low views, ended well below market value because of their error and they expected me to honor that price. I had two accounts there, one for commenting and one for selling. That’s not uncommon. It was easy to figure out. I don’t even care anymore, it’s water under the bridge. I no longer recommend using their services.
BaT stole a photograph I shot from a blog I kept many years ago. The writer used it to illustrate a story about one of their more active commenters. I reached out to them directly several times with no response. I finally posted the note I sent in the comments on the story. Then they apologized and provided credit for all the photos in their post.
I would get pretty excited if I spotted a rodent in one of the photos, so I may fit the bill here.
Rat rods. Volkswagen Rabbit. Fiat Topolino.
Ooh, now you’re making me hungry
Underrated response here. You deserve better for this quality Dad Joke.
I once watched a hawk “waterboard” a bluejay until it stopped moving, then lifted off from the water and flew away to feast. Only knew something was going on by all the noise the other bluejays were making… after the hawk left, they were silent.
Oof 🙁
Toyota Mega Cruiser, sure, but I don’t believe anybody else has ever thought it would be cool to own a 2003 Ford Taurus. It could have 666 or 69,420 miles on the odometer, and it still wouldn’t be cool.