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My camera and lens are nothing special and with photos of cars things like weather, location, background, light, angles, shadows, time of day, car cleanliness, editing ability etc etc are far more important. I could now do my photos with even a basic slr / lens combo and I still use a 5 year old Nikon D7100 with the kit lens (18-105mm). It does take more time and then editing them after takes hours. Literally hours. It's not for everyone.

Recession, no recession, Brexit, no Bexit, diesel no diesel - I care not one bit. 80% of my stock is "need" stock and only 20% is "want" stock. What do I mean? The 80% of my stock is stuff that people need, regardless of the economy, they either need a car or they don't. For the other 20%, there is usually someone benefitting from a downturn in the economy, so worth having a couple of "want" or desirable cars.

Foxtrot Oscar Victor ( no offence) I have traded through 3 day a week,quadrupling of oil,Falklands,miners strikes,several financial meltdowns like when mortgages went to 15%,this period is minor compared to some of those but it will ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’ in our job. You just have to move with the market,for instance in 08 we took a big hit on stock and moved down to bread and butter stuff like mid range estate cars and it worked.Alternativeley in recessions top end stuff will drop considerably but will then become in reach of cash punters who would normally not buy them.......Rant over !

Seriously had about 20 of these this week. Is it the national best price last price week? I reply with the actual price. One bugger offered me £700 for a £2000 car. Seriously where do the F do these fools come out of? I think the recent rise of certain political figures has encouraged more and more of these chancers to emerge and have "their say/view"... 2 or 3 years it wasn't this bad !

It doesn’t help you, it never will. Somebody selling 5 cars in one day, 300 miles away from you, will have no bearing on whether you are doing something right or wrong. I’m completely with Justin, no point in knowing how others are doing and comparing it to you. I like to know how my trader mates on here are doing just because, well, they’re mates/acquaintances but that’s all it is. If you’re not selling cars is it ok, if nobody else is? Will that pay your bills? I had my best month last month. I’m possibly going to have my worst this month. A month is too shorter a period of time to assess your performance anyway. Three months minimum in my eyes.

Tell em you have to slide the seat forward manually & Back again

While the no-cars and no-parking in city centres mantra quickly kills off the British high street.

5 car Saturday for the first time in weeks, or months that a Saturday has actually been busy. Had numerous other viewers yesterday and the day felt it went quick for the first time in a long time. Upwards of 40 and should be pushing 50 sales a month. Currently sat on 32 for the May. Working twice as hard to get the deals in and trying my absolute hardest to ensure anyone actually buying a car gets the best car buying experience I can give them. Its tough, but just got to work smart. It continues to be tough and challenging times.

If i was a london dealer taking them in part exchange you could probably nick them, everything is advertised nationally and just offer a fixed priced delievery at say £100 or fee delivery, take them out the market that don't want them then sell them where they do. (us tight sods up north)

January, February and March best start to the year ever for us April wasn't to bad but this month has died with only 4 sold and to top it off with the last price brigade can only see it being the worst month of the whole year I am hoping it will pick up. Diesel now are a no for us as the new emissions charges come in to Leeds January 2020 and other parts of the country so we have started to buy a few hybrids and to be honest they are having the most interest but not cheap stock as lots of dealers are doing the same

I skipped right to the end of this post as for me reading how well someone else is doing when your own business could be better is the single worst motivator i have ever found. There will always be someone with more cars who is selling more making more buying more, but on the flip side there will always be just as many people having the bank take there shirt of there back. my two pence worth.

Unusually optimistic TV but I think the show goes on you just have to dig down and get on with it as best as you can and try and adapt quickly when you start to spot things going wrong.

We all remember the "crash"in 2007/08/09,some called it a recession but I think we were talked into that,it was the banks/lenders that screwed up then restricted lending,when we looked back at our sales fig. from 08/09/10(retailing about 500/year (from a stock of about 40/50 cars),we had the best few years we had had for a while,then in 2012/13 we saw a decline to doing about 400/year,most of these extra sales come from people buying used instead of new when things are a bit twitchy,when things are more settled with little financial worries on the the news/media chanels then people go back to buying new,just my thoughts,could be wrong but thats how it worked out for us the last time the shit hit the fan.The finance experts tell us that recesions come in 7/8 year cycles,if we think the 07 crisis was not a true recesion are we due for a mother of all? as cant remeber the one before the 07 mess(too old!!)

I am having a very good month, not despite zero emissions but because of it. A lot of market activity in the London area from buyers that simply HAVE TO change their car although they don't really want to. 3 out of 10 sales this month were to such customers. Very nice condition diesel p/xs at VERY sensible prices means I will also start June well stocked up with full stock ready to sell. Most sales from AT and for the first time ever every customer had left a refundable holding deposit before travelling to view. Not on the strength of videos but just because I asked them to. AT works great for me, I can only assume it's the images quality as my pricing is never the keenest :-)

It's too soon to tell if losing Ebay has any impact but certainly losing AT only had a benefit, more sold less the big bill. Could be coincidence and never say never but for now AT is the last platform I would revisit. I'm trying Car Guru's now and to be fair, when analysing the ones I can (i.e. checking feedback, looking at old emails etc), they have quietly been delivering a few. I just hadn't apportioned any sales to them because I was on a free package. I really don't like their price markers but I do like the invoice they send me.

Gone away for a week now so don't really care.

Just checked my VT CDM and it says I have sold 18 since 1/4/19. Stock currently on 19 but I am trying to increase that to 25 by the end of next week. Since 1/4/19 - I have no AT bill and have just cancelled Ebay too (22/5/19 was last day). I like to try one platform at a time because I am hopeless at remembering to ask "where did you see the advert". This way, I know 100%* where the lead came from. *caveat - I have FB feed throughout at £25 per month, why would I cancel it? Hoping for a busy week next week. Have got someone chasing me down on a 207 CC but wants to view today and I want a day off. Also have someone else lined up for either the same 207 CC or another similar one I have. I'm surviving. Last month I "had it off" this month, I am paying bills. This is year 2 for me, so it is nice to have YoY comparison. Trouble is last year I did 9 in May (with no VAT margin), this year, I am sat on 8 with a week to go (but am now registered for VAT, so need to do 2 more to compensate).

Ok but I'm a glass half fill type so I see I have sold 6 over 3 weeks, I don't think if others are selling and you are not necessarily means you are doing anything wrong.

Your forgetting we buy any car, the fact that these days anyone can just look online and get and know exactly what their car is worth, gone are the days of picking up local bargains and getting great priced px cars in stock, the public now are better armed

It’s dire chaps, and Boris with his hard Brexit ain’t going to do us any favours either!

I'm not talking about niches, i'm talking about any car with pedigree, lower miles, low owners, proper history, decent spec, originality, granted these units are harder too find and compromise is the order of the day...but when dealers are happy too compromise on most of these factors then what do they expect? too many newer people in the job think stock comes from auction and that's how it works - period, plenty of people moaning about dead stock when it's quiet, the reality is it was probably wrong stock or bought wrong to start with, still plenty of dealers thinking every car is a retail prospect - it isn't and never has been, some dealers don't even realise what their stock profile is after they have bought it lol. heh sorry if it all sounds a bit negative but its reality isn't it, on a positive note trade-vet glad to hear things have calmed down at the block and hope you managed to buy some nice cars at the right money.

Had a guy message me offering £3200 on a £4k car we've just listed and "Not a penny more". Not sure if he was expecting me to succumb to his nice manners and charm...

depends as ever on spec mileage and pedigree, granted the job is slower at the moment, but folk have forgotten how to or have given up on how to profile /obtain the right stock, selling basic spec cheap cars with over average miles isn't and never has been the answer, the good stuff will always be the last type of stock too slow up when its quiet.

Spot on there. They all seem to be coming out over the last 2 or 3 weeks full on time wasters and total dreamers. Things will pick up again

If your going down that route I would rather build from scratch far easier than patching something up and ten times the return.

I blame the rise of all these save money on your shopping save money on your car insurance sites, we are now a culture of price driven people.

Just got to keep changing to the market conditions and having stuff that the big supermarkets don't have to get the margins.