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I am open 7 days a week. I open 08:30 til 7pm monday to Friday, 9-6 Saturday and 10-4 Sunday. I regularly stay late to do deals or have customers pick up cars. I personally work 7 days total last year in 12 months I had 14 days off. I easy do 100 hours a week and have personally experienced great growth through my own hard work and dedication. If you want to play at it and juggle the 9-5 with selling a few cars you are no threat to me. I am open when you are working at your day job. Part timer with no/little reviews or online presence is not working hard to maintain the reputation and feedback we/us have gained. I tell you what really gets me annoyed and it really boils my P!55...Its the faces that are at the auctions running businesses with premises and 10+ cars in stock at any time easily operating beyond the vat threshold who are NOT vat registered. They are direct competition to any of us 'proper/fulltime/legit traders'. They hurt us. And also these are the ones who don't give a hoot about warranty and obligations.

100% with everything said here by Jim and the more 'recognised' faces. Have frequented here a lot less lately due to the questions being asked, the kind of questions that 15+ years in the trade I've had to work hard to find the answers to.. Just waiting for GGs input on all this * Edit, how about a closed forum for us bonafide dealers, maybe something that requires say a VAT number to use? *

Now I'm just going to get straight to the point. I'm not posting this to offend anyone, however I have noticed over the last few months that more and more questions are appearing on Car Dealer Magazine Forum from small part-time , home traders , asking how to do this and how to do that in the trade, now as I say I'm not meaning to offend anyone especially anyone at Car Dealer Magazine who do police this forum very well, BUT in my view if you have another MAIN employment and only trade on the side then do you think it's ethical that these part timers are asking detailed questions about the trade on this platform and expecting FULLY committed dealers of all sizes to answer them? Now I know what you are going to say, everyone has to start somewhere, YES, I agree and many people start part time with old cars to see if they like the trade before committing fully, however when some part-timer traders have full time employment and trade on the side with cars priced up to £10,000 with NO intention of giving up their full time work surely that is affecting us full time, fully committed businesses? I would also like to say that I am more than happy to help, assist or answer any amount of questions from someone who wants to make a go at this great industry , we even run a small mentoring service for these but at some point you have to commit to go full time, either that or you are stealing sales & profit from me and my peers! As I say hopefully I won't receive abusive phone calls or emails with this, but feel that someone has to say it, because I'm sure there are many who are thinking it! Jim

Well I'm happy to screen shot the many many PMs I have from such traders, in fact I'm not going to call them traders they are chancers, and they do hurt our bottom line believe me. but what can we do? can we have a closed forum for certain discussions? I really don't know

Full agree Jim. What happened to learning the trade by working at a dealership?

But car auctions as we know do not adhere to any sale of goods act. They can legally sell a deathtrap to anyone who wants to buy it. As legitimate motor traders we accept this and will expect to prepare the car prior to resale BUT a private buyer is buying the car for himself to use. Also the bandit traders that are resident at the auctions will happily buy these vehicles then resell them without any preparation. Making the auctions VAT reg traders only would cut out these problems. The only problem is it will cut down on the deathtraps that the auction can legally sell on so somebody will be stuck with them or they will need to be scrapped. Excellent idea

Exactly...So why do the auction houses allow it? obviously because they are out for every penny and do not give a damn who buys the cars. I have said before on another thread that i do not see how a "private" buyer can go along to a trade auction ie sold as seen and legitimately buy a car and then get in it and drive down the motorway. Just does not seem realistic these days.

Well said Jim. The straw had broke my back this morning and I was midway through a bit of a rant on this very subject until I got dragged off to do some proper work, by that time I had cooled down and probably for the best, you have put it far more eloquently than I could ever have done. Personally I think they have some bloody cheek asking for advice like butter wouldn't melt, if others want to help that's up to them, but leave me out of it.

Just because he is a part time trader selling say a car a month at £5000 - £8000 a go doesnt make him a chancer! As long as he is paying his taxes, has the correct insurance in place and offers a good service and warranty I cannot see what the issue is. It is no different in any industry. You wouldnt call someone with a high street shop turning over £1500 a week selling bread or cakes or sweets etc a chancer. They are just a small, local business. The vat threshold is set at £82000 for any business and thats the rules. You choose to sell more than that and SK motors chooses to sell less. You both have the choice. I completely agree that the guy with a different car parked on a street corner every week pocketing the cash, offering no service or warranty and paying no taxes is no good to any of us, but the 2 are quite different.

No that's not what I mean< i'm the first in the queue to help anyone with anything if I think I can , however when we have someone on the Forum who openly admits that they are not a VAT registered dealer dealing with £10k cars , please tell me how that works, so there we have it, I've been 30 years in the trade the last 13 years on my own and now have 12 employees and if someone can tell me how I can pay no vat (legally) please fire away.........but I won'y hold my breath! The point I was trying to make is this, Auctions shouldn't dictate to the Dealers it should be the other way round, however now they are so big they have complete control , taking more and more profit opportunity away from each of us by pushing up prices by inviting everyone and their dog in to purchase cars. Getting stock has always been hard and now getting harder but unless you are a VAT registered trader with a traders licence , let that be trade to trade or trade to retail , these are the ONLY people who should be allowed to trade and gain info in forums like this. As I already said, I'm happy to take on a mentoring role as I already do with anyone who wants to make this industry their business , living and career, but if you are 'in it to wing it' move on!

Because there's no such thing as 'trade' auction any more. Everyone is 'trade' nowadays, everyone wants to pay wholesale price; its a thing! costco and Makro are also booming, same issue. Sadly buying 'trade/wholesale' is no longer a secret society

You can avoid it all you like but once you start turning over the threshold then it is mandatory to register. I think you have to decide whether to take the business seriously or not. Once you adapt to being VAT registered then it really is not that difficult. I personally would like to see all auctions whether online or live be strictly VAT registered dealers only. This would get rid of the bandits and private buyers making life easier for all of us..

Well I've obviously upset you enough for you to start a thread which is obviously directed at me! I never said at any point that I had no intention of going full time and being fully committed to the trade. Why do you think I've been trading up, learning along the way, doing research into how to become more professional, becoming vat registered, warranties, consumer law etc. Also, you keep making reference to me trading £10,000 cars but avoiding being Vat registered. I said I have traded anything up to £10,000, That was one car at that value! When I first started trading I worked around 50 hours a week in my employment before doing anything with cars. I had a source where I bought cars that needed clutches or dual mass flywheels replacing, I worked every night and every weekend repairing these myself and then sold them on. That made me enough money to buy better cars and so on. I've been into cars all my life, I've built cars up from scratch, I've been involved with tuning Cosworths back in the day and with Japanese performance cars. Just because my full time employment is not related to the trade doesn't mean I'm just playing around and I've not put my full circumstances or reasons on here because it's nothing to do with anyone else. At the end of the day, I've made sure I'm as legal as I need to be, I work bloody hard to get where I am and I only posted on here hoping for some friendly help and didn't expect to get shot down like I have been. I'll carry on regardless, maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't!

The guy asked a question on an open forum, a home trader, sells cars with a warranty, stays under the vat threshold, and pays his taxes etc from that income, also has a full time job and pays his his taxes and ni contributions from that I would imagine, Just a thought, but could he maybe only sell a couple of cars a year and keep his full time job that he may earn a decent wage from.... Don't really see what the issue with him is, I trade from home part time , pay my due taxes and dont pay vat because I've never hit the threshold or want to volunteer for it, absolutely nothing illegal about it, as for "having to commit to the trade to be part of it" at the moment I earn a decent wage doing what I do so won't be giving it up just yet...

Steve and this is exactly the reason why this Forum and our Forum has started up, to help discuss issues and problems in the trade and help each other, however for me you have to fully commit to a 'trade' to be part of it! IMHO

Do it. I think apprenticeships are fantastic. We currently have 3 and are about to take an extra 2/3 on soon, 30% of our 40 staff started as apprentices and it's great getting fresh blood into the Industry and also gives something to the local area. My advice fInd the best college not the closest. Happy to chat and grants available usually.

This is more about giving away trade knowledge to chancers then pulling up the ladder

give this man a call Gary on 07970470379, he's my lad's examiner from the north west training council, not sure if they cover your area but he's happy to help you and point you in the right direction, he's expecting your call just mention ste from discount vw audi.

As Jim's already pointed out ! we're all here to help new kids on the block ! but Full time job and dabbling is talking food from our mouths !

i would suggest if you dont want to give the secrets youve built up to make your business a success then dont,i used to freely give information away that i had accrued over years of trading now i think before i speak and see if theres a dollar in the outcome for me,thats how i now retail and i carry it here im always happy to help anyone but i never let them pick my brains clean we all have to start somewhere i certainly never got a grounding in a dealership as its not somewhere i wanted to work

I'll find out the process for you from him when he's home tonight

We scrapped our contract with AT a couple of months ago , but kept the razor site showing all our stock (15-20)and just put 2-3 cars on a pay as you go basis . Everything else is with Ebay / Motors / Facebook /RAC and I would say their effectiveness is in that order too . AT just too expensive .....don't miss that £1500 bill for sure . Good luck !

Amen.

Become VAT registered and play by the same rules as the rest of us. Once you start paying VAT your really have something to moan about.

some say the earth is flat