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Ha, I can relate to this!

Been In the trade over 20 years and still get the buzz when this happens ..... Had a car come in px, got it fully valeted, took pictures, parked the car on the front (with no price board on), Friday afternoon had a phone call from a lady enquiring about it, came down a couple of hours later with her husband, they had a look around it picking the car like tyres are getting low etc, (i said to them if they buy the car i will put two new tyres on the front), then he said he had a px and didn't want to part with a lot of money, was hinting that he almost wants to do a swap, at the end they said we will be back either on Sunday or Monday. I put the car on the net after they had gone, about 20 minutes later had a phone call from a different customer, they came on Saturday morning at 9, looked at it and left a large deposit (did not tell the second customer that there was someone else interested)......then this evening had a phone call... This is briefly how the telephone conversation went AND we will make a rare close to £2k profit on this one car..... First Customer : sorry to call you so late on Sunday evening, we came to look at the car on Friday can we come in the morning to see you about it? Me : Its ok for the phone call but the car has been sold yesterday, we've taken a deposit on it. First Customer : But we said we were going to come back Me : Sorry love, someone else has left a deposit for the car First Customer : Is the car definitely been sold, we did see it first Me : yes you did see it first, but they bought it first as they committed to it first, so i am sorry the car has now been sold. (STILL BUZZING)

+2 Confirmed buyers only........

Ok, I’m thinking about Just using eBay. To delete that £1700 bill a month would half my break even point, or would I be “spiting my own face”

Ditch AT and just sell on eBay, works great for us and they're not greedy b**t*rds

And if you can find an identical spec/mileage/condition/price, you're guaranteed to still have it in June.

. Now you got to replace it, not easy.

I’ve been on a pitch for 3 years and consider myself just internet based, the pitch holds 20 cars, in the early days I’d sit here all day scared I’d miss a sale, then I thought I’d get a valeter so when I wasn’t there he could look after the customers (what a waste of money that was) he left over a year ago, It took me 2 years to realise I can easily manage 20 cars on my own and when I’ve looked at what sales I do from walk ons it averages about 1 a month (we’re in a smallish village, not near loads of main dealers and car pitches) so what is the point being sat in an office all day stressing yourself out! but I would love to own a pitch or unit and not have to rent, always feels better when you know it’s yours.

I would not move very far from where you are now.You could lose a lot of your regulars.We were renting for years,must have paid out £1m in rent.It took us several years to find freehold premises close bye,but we nearly missed them,a sale was going through.We paid 30% more to gazzump the buyer and it was worth it.

The buzz.....while I like doing deals ( downing the punters ),it has always been on the buying side for me.It is not the same now of course,you might get good knock downs on line.However you have to wait for them to land,to see whether it is a Grade 3 and appears as a Grade 5 or vice versa.When you drove to the other end of the country,stood at the block,got some good knock downs it was different.You would then go into the yard to check again in case you had missed something.If they were OK,that was the buzz....The long drive home then felt a lot better.

I had it this weekend. A couple came down to look at a Tigra I had on Saturday, loved the car but his Mrs wasn’t happy about a bit of wear on the drivers seat. We agreed a price but no deposit was left as it was subject to him seeing how much a new seat would cost him first. Sunday and I get another phone call from someone else wanting to view it. They came down and bought it straight away for more than the offer from the first couple. Happy days. First customer rang me back last night saying he’d found a seat on eBay so would be down Monday to collect it. Sorry pal sold it this morning

Definitely as above, a call before they are leaving to make sure it’s not sold, text when they are 20 mins away etc. Does seem to work for me albeit a small sample size to work from currently!

Haha too true. I don’t do viewings on a Sunday but twice a year I relent & twice a year I soon get reminded why I don’t deal with Sunday tyrekickers. I rarely get “no shows” because, say if someone phoned this morning & then said they wanted to see a car this afternoon, I would tell them to phone me when they are ready to set off to check the car is still available. It works for me because in this game I soon learned that “I’ll come & see it later” means absolutely sweet f.a. - unfortunately common courtesy for your fellow man is distinctly uncommon nowadays. Tbh if I changed career I would NOT do anything involving contact with the general public.

its kinda spooky how often that happens, thankfully i tend to stock a lot of the same stuff so i use this to ok well i have got another one i can do a similar deal on blah

So true, I don't have a car in my name, I drive whatever has free fuel......

Some of our stock. we have sold 3 cars today would you beleive it Feb always is a funny month https://www.autotrader.co.uk/services/car-dealers/uk/east-of-england/essex/billericay/village-cars-billericay-billericay-dpp-10012523