Search for number plates on eBay and you will find thousands of listings from all over Australia.
The high starting prices (often $10k plus) could fool you into thinking that people are making thousands from selling their plates, but this is definitely not the case…
We decided to look at all of the completed number plate listings for Queensland during the month of April.
The results were not particularly good!
A total of 29 number plates were listed as sold. The total value of the sales came to $16,364, giving an average sale of $564.
We then added up the replacement costs if you bought each plate new from PPQ today. That figure came to $27,910.
So all up the total losses on the sold plates (based on today’s new plate costs) was $11,545, or an average loss of $398 per number plate.
Only 2 plates sold for more than their replacement cost, both of which were prestige plates.
We don’t have an accurate figure on the total number of Qld listings that ended during April, but the number looks to be around 800.
Based on the 29 sales, that gives a sell rate of just 3.6%.
Biggest profit: MENTAL sold for $4,999. New cost = $2,395 (Prestige). Profit = $2,694.
Biggest loss: DLX sold for $679. New cost = $3,500 (ID 3 Character). Loss = $2,821.
Conclusion
What have we learned? Well the good new is that you definitely can sell number plates on eBay.
This is proven by the fact that plates sold at the rate of almost one per day during April.
However, unless you have a very special plate, you need to accept that your plate is going to sell for less than you paid for it.
It is simply not possible to register a combination with PPQ for $450 and then expect to sell it on eBay (or anywhere else) for $10,000 like some people seem to believe.