Every shuttle van has a last day. Ours came for a high-mileage Ford that had run the Orlando airport loop more times than anybody wanted to count. After we finally pulled it off the schedule it sat behind the shop for two months looking sad, and eventually you have to sell the thing.
So we put it on Facebook Marketplace, like everybody does now. But before I listed it I went looking for whether there was any actual data on selling a vehicle there, or whether the whole thing runs on guesswork and vibes.
Turns out there is data. A company called AutoLander, which builds software car dealerships use to list their inventory, published a study of 10,823 dealer listings from 196 dealerships earlier this year. Real listings, real prices, not a survey. Three findings changed how we sold the van.
1. Thursday is the busiest day. Sunday is a ghost town.
This was the one that surprised me most. Dealers post to Marketplace on a very predictable rhythm, and the weekend is not it:
| Day | Share of new listings |
|---|---|
| Thursday | 17.5% |
| Wednesday | 17.0% |
| Monday | 16.4% |
| Tuesday | 16.3% |
| Friday | 15.9% |
| Saturday | 11.5% |
| Sunday | 5.4% |
Source: AutoLander, "The Facebook Marketplace Used-Car Report 2026." Based on 17,778 dealer listings over 90 days.
Thursday gets more than three times the listings Sunday does. You can read that two ways, and honestly both are true:
- Midweek is when buyers browse. Dealers do this all day, every day. If they've all landed on Thursday, they've almost certainly tested it.
- Midweek is also the most crowded. More listings means more competition for the same eyeballs.
We split the difference and listed Wednesday evening, so the van was sitting there fresh when the Thursday rush started. We had messages by lunch the next day.
2. Nearly a quarter of listings change price after they go up
22.6% of listings ended up at a different price than the one they were posted at. That is almost one in four.
That took real pressure off. I'd been agonizing over the number like it was carved in stone, and it turns out even the professionals adjust as they go. Here's what we did:
- Started a little high, on purpose
- Sat there for nine days with steady views but no serious offers
- Dropped it $400
- Sold it the following week
Your first price is a starting position, not a commitment.
3. Marketplace is not a junk drawer anymore
This was the reality check. I had it in my head that Marketplace was where beat-up work vehicles go to die. The numbers say otherwise:
- Median dealer asking price: $28,295. Not a typo.
- Only 6.6% of dealer listings are under $10,000.
- 45% are priced above $30,000.
- Trucks and 4x4s dominate. The five most-listed vehicles are all pickups and 4x4s, led by the Ford F-150.
A used passenger van isn't exactly a Wrangler, but it lives a lot closer to that world than to the twelve-hundred-dollar-beater world. Pricing it like a beater would have cost us real money.
What we'd tell another small operator
If you run a shuttle, a limo service, a landscaping crew, or anything else with a vehicle or two to move, here's the short version:
- List Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. You want to be fresh when the volume shows up.
- Avoid listing on a Sunday. It's the quietest day on the platform by a wide margin.
- Start high and plan to adjust. A quarter of listings move on price. Yours probably will too.
- Don't undersell a working vehicle. Marketplace buyers are spending real money on real trucks and vans.
- Take a lot of photos. Not from the study, just from us. Every single person who messaged asked for more.
None of this is complicated. But it was nice to make the calls off somebody's actual numbers instead of a hunch, and the full report is free to read and worth twenty minutes if you're about to sell something.
The van went to a guy in Kissimmee who's turning it into a camper. He seemed genuinely thrilled about it, which beats the scrapyard.
Oh, and if you need a shuttle while yours is off the road, you know where to find us.
