trade vet

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    4715

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    111

Everything posted by trade vet

  1. trade vet
    If there was a Cambria rep on the rostrum,the sale may have been showing a good surplus so the auctioneer has been allowed to sell it.....As for over age stock,sales managers at dealer groups can get their knuckles rapped by the bean counters.I know a trader who for years has made main dealer sales managers a hero by swapping their overage stock by inflating invoices......... I used to keep stock for months,there was always one or two. Where’s M S P on this one,was he not claiming to take 4 grand out of a ninety dayer last week !
  2. trade vet
    Has anyone ever had a punter ask to get a Dacia for them.
  3. trade vet
    Dacia should have been well over book...?
  4. trade vet
    When you are starting out,it can be a good idea to have a partner.I did when I was 23,we pooled our resources and contacts and it worked for 4 years then we split.I cannot think of any car dealer partnerships that have lasted.
  5. trade vet
    If you pay Ltd company takings into your personal bank account,if HMRC spot this,they will do you and tax you.It does not matter that the takings are then being forwarded to the company bank account......It could trigger an enquiry and you don’t want one of them.....ask your accountant.
  6. trade vet
    I can think of occasions when we have been dropped in by our bank and it would have been good to have had an account elsewhere to turn to.
  7. trade vet
    I could probably write a book on cock ups and bad decisions.
  8. trade vet
    Thank you Umesh,I think in 35 years you must have better stories than that,..........no hurry.
  9. trade vet
    Offering....should be insisting.....if it is the town centre ,she would be safer in south central LA
  10. trade vet
    I think if you start the thread,you should contribute.......Decisions,I have admitted to 2 bad ones,here is an unintentional good one ( sorry if it goes on a bit).When PPI started before the millennium,we thought it was crap and sidestepped it despite the big commission you could get from finance companies for selling it.Our finance rep was under pressure to get us to offer it so I said we might try and do a few.I then heard about some dealer being fined by the FSA or whatever for not offering PPI to his customer,who had later got made redundant and had his car repossessed.So that made my mind up,we would offer it but I still thought it was crap and expensive and punters would not bother.So we knocked up a ‘ Notice of Understanding’,which explained to punters that they were being given the opportunity to make their own mind up about taking out PPI to run alongside their finance agreement. They had to sign our notice confirming acceptance or rejection after reading the PPI leaflet.What happened....70% of the punters taking out finance opted for PPI.,which was unheard of and we were not actively selling it.The average dealer conversion rate apparently was 20%.,so we got paid huge advance commission and our sales guys were also paid direct by the finance company.Even our finance rep was winning holidays to the US for smashing targets because of our conversion rate.............Anyway,fast forward 5 or 6 years and the PPI misselling scandal breaks.We were inundated by claims companies for alleged misselling.Luckily we had kept copies of our signed notices so we could prove we did not missell,otherwise we would have been done for a lot of money or even wiped out with legal fees......past glories!
  11. trade vet
    They were always cheap as chips.Good for doing min.p/x chucky deals.Proper punters never bought them as far as I can remember.
  12. trade vet
    You are right,I should have said when I decided to close on Sundays,we then had 5 salesmen,how stupid was that.Mind if you are a one man business and you are having a purple patch and knocking them out,who takes a day off because you know it is not going to last.
  13. trade vet
    So they are open for walk in enquiries,that is good news !
  14. trade vet
    Nice one....We do 7 day money back guarantees....nobody copies us !
  15. trade vet
    There has always been DVLA problems.We had sold something and the punters complained when the doc came back stating it was a lawn mower.I can’t remember whether we had to swap the car to keep them happy.It would be nice to have an insider in DVLA to quickly resolve problems,I don’t think it is open to the public.
  16. trade vet
    That’s interesting,I recall when we decided to close Sunday’s.It then became evident that it was costing at least 12 deals per month plus the Sunday punters who returned days later......and would have had a material effect on our bottom line.I think Sunday punters are easier anyway...If you have a pitch,this is a 7 day job.
  17. trade vet
    Your turn Umesh......bad decisions please ( major ones )....thank you.
  18. trade vet
    If you are doing over 5 per week,do your own warranties.It works,you are in control and the punters appreciate the service.It is not as if in a year you will spend £20k on claims.....unless you don’t know what you are doing.
  19. trade vet
    He could be in North Korea advising Kim Jon-Un on how to deal with Mr Trump........Let’s hope he is OK,just watching the pitch,keeping shop etc....
  20. trade vet
    A friend of a dealer friend of mine was retiring and he owned a long established pitch in East Dulwich where he sold and rented out motor homes.The rent was cheap,so I jumped on the train to London to view this pitch.Main road site,10 car frontage,half an acre in the rear,sub contract workshop on site.£500 per week inc rates,no competition within a mile or two,it was for nowt.It may have been good for motorhomes,but it was no good for selling cars.We found that punters would not travel from more than 5 miles away,because the traffic hardly moved.The paintshop was a few miles away and it took 2 hours to swap a car.We lasted 2 years and blew good money.
  21. trade vet
    We all make big mistakes and cock ups but you rarely hear traders admitting to them,it is all past glories.It will be interesting to see how many admit to them on here.
  22. trade vet
    A long time ago against a lot of competition,we acquired the lease on a very good pitch.It was expensive and the car dealer landlord made us pay one years rent in advance.However we did very well there.Come the first rent review,the rent was being doubled so we sold the lease and bought what seemed to be a good out of town showroom.It was a bad move and we had to board it up and move out.....
  23. trade vet
    That must hurt Justin.....
  24. trade vet

    CDX 18

    trade vet replied to umesh's topic in General Dealer Chat

    I am pleased it was worthwhile,I thought about going but out of respect to the Car Dealer mag guys I decided not to.I would have probably been guilty of heckling some of these digital bullshitters,got into an argument with Autotrader,Cap and co and been banned from here.
  25. trade vet
    I hope BCA waved the storage charges ! We stopped using Enfield years ago because our transport company refused to go back because of some hassle they had.We get one or two from Perry Barr but I think lifting from there is now ‘time specific’,it does not get any easier.I have to say,if you find a reliable transport company,stick with them even if they charge a bit more.