for those that resell bikes (here, ebay, CL), a question - for a high-end frame and fork/module, is it worth it to build it up and try to sell it as a complete ride? Assume it’s only missing drivetrain + wheels and if I built it up, it would probably be using whatever I could find for cheap.
I varies a lot. What frame are we talking about?
If it’s a high-end frame, frame only. If you put good parts on it, they will be being sold at a high discount. If you put junk parts on it, the buyer is paying for parts they are likely to want to replace anyway.
I bought a hi-end BMC bike (eBay) and the seller had put a $200 DA cassette on the stock wheels, and a $280 carbon saddle on the bike. The cassette was the wrong range for my riding, and the saddle was not the one I wanted to ride; so I wasn’t going to pay any more for the bike with those parts than without. Ended up just taking them off and reselling them on eBay.
I will typically say in my ad that the frameset is $1,500 (adjust this number to whatever the market will pay).
I will also say that I can build it into a complete bike with any components that they want. Then I state a sample build kit with Ultegra and every other necessary component with a price for that build.
This way, I am appealing to the customer who just wants a frameset and the customer who wants a complete bike.
I would say frameset has a better chance of selling given this is a high-end module, especially if this is a tri bike module. Anyone who’s going to pay you for what the frameset is worth will probably put his preferred groupset and parts on it anyway.