Earunder

It has been relatively quiet, I think the first month this year where we've not grown from the month of the previous year and we're down by around 30-35%. I'm not putting much thought into it at the moment as the new budget was announced, Brexit is still lurking on peoples minds and of course Christmas being only round the corner. It was kind of a given in many aspects that this November was going to be an extended December period. In foresight it may well lurk into the first few weeks of the New Year, with the economy getting back to spending regularly again toward the end of January and a rise in February.

Ignore. The more we ignore them the less they become. It does make me wonder if they do this when doing their shopping? Put all the food in the trolley, go to the checkout, "that'll be £219.80 please sir", "I'll give you £150.00".

+1

Oh I miss a few, sit here with 4 windows open over 2 monitors and some of the guys say I look like I'm a horse racing addict.

Call A/T, could be a number generation issue, not something dubious just maybe a system error.

Not too sure on CarGurus or Motors. We're not on A/T anymore and our sales haven't been hit thus far, lost possibly 4/5 sales from it but when your paying silly money that doesn't even cover their cost. We've had a few from both. Our package is about £600 p/m each one. It's all about ROI, brand awareness and profit per sale. For us A/T was good at cars £6k and under if you followed their price structure meaning a £700 gross margin, a £4-500 net profit. Not quite the great business strategy, 1 dead deal kills off 4, but there are hundreds of dealers that prefer this strategy with a 20 day turnaround. CarGurus is pretty good at the middle range of 7-12k and Motors, well that's just random bits of nothingness a lot of the time. Facebook started well for us, we're very well known locally so we generate 20-30% of our business on return sales with a further 30-35% local or recommended. Here's what we do on a quarter and every dealer SHOULD be doing this! I know most don't!! It's scary crazy and only takes a short amount of time to do if you set your stock book up to do it. Advertising Platform | How Many Cars Sold from it | Cost Of Advertising | Margin Total Of Cars Sold | Profit From Platform. Everyone should be asking their customers where they saw the advert. We presented our sales information to A/T who were left speechless and they even got so mumbled fell back on the line of they surely saw it on A/T then saw it on the other platforms. Well if that's the case and A/T is the market leader why didn't they mention A/T first? A/T isn't for everyone as every area is different. CarGurus pumps a LOT of advertising money into certain areas, we're one of them and we get a decent response rate. I won't mention their advertising strategies from what I've seen as I wouldn't want the costly bully boys to start doing it as CarGurus are giving us decent feedback at the moment. On another note their email enquiries. Yes at first it's very suspicious, and I do have to agree that I find some to be quite implausible. However, we have been with them for 7 months now and without mentioning specific figures, our ROI last quarter was 841% Their Valuations I scratch my head every time I see the valuation guide on some of the vehicles. Apparently I'm £1,740 Over Priced on 1 vehicle that has a CAP Clean value of what they want me to retail it at. I'm not too sure spec is taken in to consideration. I'd say if you can afford to chuck away a CarGurus fee for 3/6 months (depending on the contract you can negotiate with them) then do it. Like A/T, it's not great for every area but worth a punt.

Just Yesterday "It has a small dent on the bonnet" I felt like smacking his head on the bonnet as I'd been with him for 3 hours and only right at the very end did he say, "I noticed straight away the dent on the bonnet, so i'm not sure" You are kidding me!?! The dent was less than 5mm, didn't notice it myself but so simple a fix the dentman probably wouldn't charge. I assured Mr Waste of Time that it was nothing, he wouldn't even notice it and said if he was that worried come back Monday after the dentman had been today to view it. Even declined that!!! Funny as hell this game sometimes... Oh needless to say, dentman been (he was already pre-booked to do 3/4 cars today), dent out and low and behold he didn't charge and his words were (THAT!?! It's more like a stone chip)

Yeah it's obvious the auctioneers have been trained as they all have the distinct same strategy. Quite comical. I like it when I'm not actually desperate for something, in the wouldn't mind it boat and they struggle for hall bids. They drop it then I'm in twice only then stop. I like hearing the word provisional after, even though it says on screen reserve met. Thanks! I thought as much although they're still at the 20k mark weekly. A few new vendors on the top end of the market also. DA has always been overpriced IMO. Got one good deal in 2 years. Everything is CAP clean or over. HaHa! Definitely! I look at some of the prices and face palm myself thinking... "Where are they selling these cars?" Have I missed an advertising platform where people by cars for 130% over value? Small stuff is making it's money, that's evidentual with the rise of the "street dealer", but they won't be around long. Never are as they can't cut the cost of repairing something when it screws them in the backside. YES! MASSIVELY YES! Kinda obvious but don't bid early on stuff you know, he knows, you want. Like hiding outside the halls again haha. I sit online sometime thinking please don't let it be Mr X who auctions my car... Ex fleet is ok, we used to have a deal with a large Ford franchise in the midlands on their old P/Ex's until they went full throttle on DA. Didn't fall out with them over it as business is business but it was disappointing to lose them. I prefer paying the little extra to have the cover from Assured Reports although the last few months prices have been over run and stupid. Takes a day to get 3/4 decent priced cars as you have to sit their looking at over 1,000 go through. I used to track 10-20 cars a day to get 2-4, now I have to track over 100 to come close to walking away kinda happy that I've got a few with a decent mark up.

Thankfully still ticking along nicely. I can't get my head around the prices. I mean I've been picking up a few golden gems luckily enough over the past 2 weeks and have gone to the halls to collect them only to find... GU17 - quiet, EN1 - quiet, MK43 - quiet. Sat and watched the hall to see what was going on and on at least 3 occasions out of 10 vehicles the auctioneer had his moment of glory. Typical running start is this:- (Caps at 12,000) Car enters hall - WOW! Oversells it like he's selling condoms to a sex addict Starts at 10 Miraculously 7 people bid at the same time in the hall and it's at 11,100 within 2 seconds. P/Wood are notorious for this, I refuse to go there now. Another trick they do is the double hall bid. It's at 11,100 - No bids for a good few seconds... You bid, then amazingly it's spurred another 2 hall bidders on and now you're at 11,500. It's a simple enough strategy to do as so many fall for it and they catch you when you're spam clicking. They go back and say "Sorry Hall Bid", `Yes Mr Auctioneer, you saw 2 bids while you were starring at the monitor watching for my next bid`... You know what ones do it, just bid the once, they'll learn not to do it to you. Last thing I've noticed. They don't take your first bid. Hall doesn't seem interested at 10 for example, auctioneer is begging for a bid. You bid, then here come the woodworms with their several bids. At the moment, I'll say if you're in need of stock get down the halls and off the internet. It's a running fest. I can't remember a time when they have run prices so much. Maybe the vendors are holding out as reserves seem high but is that down to them or BCA? Who knows. Hope that makes you smile and reflect on your month or if it helps anyone.

Don't get me wrong, we do offer PCP but don't push or advertise it on a major scale like some. It's a good product for later / more expensive vehicles and is ideal for the person wanting to change their vehicle every 3/4 years. When someone goes for the PCP deal we do a separate 'old style' Demands & Needs sheet that the customer must sign when they sign their finance documents. The plus is that Santander do a short video with their e-sign so it explains, in detail, the whole process. That along with our D&N's simplifies and explains everything in fine detail. This will cover our backside if the PPi snakes find (which they will) a loop whole or way to make a claim against the lender or dealer for mis-representation or mis-selling.

I'd be very careful with this. I can foresee a HUGE problem with dealers / lenders operating on these circumstances. The PPi claim snakes will be looking to exploit a flaw in this so be very very careful.

Hi jsr, Pictures are fine. Replace the centre caps, we do this on all our mercs. They are about 25 quid for 4 off ebay if you buy 10 sets or 37 quid per set. It's one of the most common and annoying things of the mercs as they ALWAYS need replacing or they stand out like an eskimo on a giraffe. Manual / Auto - Quite surprising the times I've heard dealers moan about accidentally buying a manual mercedes. BUT, just a little teaser, the right ones are actually very good sellers. 2 weeks? I'd say our average turn around on that car is between 50-70 days (35-55 if auto), with a decent margin of course, so you're well in the green turn around time. Price? If it were us we'd go with 7400-7500 but we warrant, service and mot the car for that. I'd imagine you'd have similar prices from dealers like that on AutoTrader. As others have mentioned you're pricing yourself on dealer prices, I'd be inclined to agree and say a few pound off £7k. Hope that helps, good luck

The paper group was 'The Post' and it was thriving then, a lot of calls and good responses. On par or just short of A/T. You're right though, since the Manheim group took them over the leads and sales have dropped dramatically from them, I think mainly part of the BuyaCar.co.uk advertising spam it's now filled with. The whole site just looks messy and awkward. We still get 2/3 a month from it so it is paying for itself quite easily, just not the response we were getting a few years ago, it'll be nice if the site had a make over and made it easier for the customer to search for cars. Go and try and find your adverts. I bet you'll be spammed up with loads of BuyaCar.co.uk listings.

I think you need to lookup -> Money Laundering Regulations

Again, the stats on the websites are all online. You'll be shocked at where AT are on search platforms and how much more Motors get in response to click throughs and search results from search engines. Last time I checked they were up by 62% where as AT were at 30-32%. Like I said, follow your stats, not the shepherd or sheep Thanks Arfur

Thanks for the welcome It depends on what works for you. Always remember what works for someone else is not always guaranteed to work for you. We do regular (once a months) checks all our advertising platforms as well as track leads and track finalized sales. Since the introduction of sponsored ads on AT we say that our listings fell in not only views but also conversions (they go hand in hand obviously). Upon our checks we obviously saw we were below the pecking order (pages 3/4+) despite being 3rd-5th most valuable in terms of value for money, but sponsored ads were always first. We tried premium, upped our retail value of the cars to try to cover the additional expense but to no avail. As we only sold 6 cars in 2 months via their platform it was a no brainer due to us being down by £12k ish in those months via their platform. Cross that with 12 cars from Motors and 3 CarGurus in only 1 month for £500 per month each platform meant it was a no brainer for us. I'm a firm believer of stats. I love them, love doing it, love tracking everything. If you don't you may as well throw your monthly budget at a wall and hope for the best. Some dealers will be surprised at what else can work. But as I mentioned, some dealers are stuck with AT because of the market appeal in their area. We're very fortunate of having a lot of local traffic, being established a good number of years and a return sales average of just over 20% per month. I'm not going to label everything out on a public forum but the research and information is right there. Go and search for your cars on each platform to see how easy it is to find it if you were the consumer. We take 1 day a month to do this and you'll be surprised the things you'll see. It's all good relying on automated or generated advice guides that platforms provide, that makes you lazy and in turn lose money. I'd rather spend the time myself to see for myself and in return get an idea on the entire market I am in. I'm not saying we do this with every car, no we have a business model / strategy when it comes to our pricing, stock portfolio and turnaround averages. But you should keep a close feel on the market by manually checking things or you'll become a robot listening and doing what you're told to do.

Very True

Quite a good question, but there is no correct answer. Every dealership, small / large, independent / franchised is different and run differently by their goals on how they are driven. Some prefer to write off the cost as an individual loss while others view it as a profit as they work their expenditure into their monthly budget. That's about as answerable as can be without divulging business strategies.

Oh the cat and mouse game of Part Exchange Valuations. We always ask the customer what they are looking for first but it doesn't really matter anymore Most nowadays have high expectation because of the ludicrous valuations tools but we tend to offer CAP average on clean cars and only budge a few hundred below CAP on something that needs work and CAP clean if it's a nice car we have no problem retailing ourselves. We offer a few hundred of CAP below on preparation cars as we've got a backup of getting our money back by putting it through BCA. It just depends on the prep that needs to be done. Over a year I'd say we more or less break even.

@Nvp cars No problem at all. It's a very precarious situation at the moment, not just in used car sales, but in the business world in general. Most customers don't appreciate that they are buying from a business and that the margin in used cars (on average) is not thousands but hundreds. Of course you get the odd one or 2 that make a pretty penny but these `bonus` (what I like to call them) cars are few and far between nowadays. If you're completely committed to doing this you'll need to be strong minded and have A LOT of financial backing. If you've got 100k to start with, never `play` with money or you're destined to fail, then you should spend 50-55k on stock, probably 12-15 cars. The rest you'll need as cover for your costs over the next 6 months. You ALWAYS should count on rainy days. In this industry those days are months so you should prepare for them as they can average as high as 4 months out of a yearly period. Don't get attached to the cars. Having a smaller stock can mean you can get attached to a car for one way or another, which results in you not letting it go for a £200 discount. In some circumstances like you've just got it in, fair enough, but if you've had it a month, sell it. Don't under value your cars. A/T love to put this incentive to dealers. Move it in 20 days blah blah... Ok that's great, make £400-600... Now try and replace it, that takes you longer than selling the cars in the first place unless you over pay on everything. As others have mentioned, it's a very unpredictable market at the moment. If a friend of mine had £100k of his money, with a site available to him like you have, would I recommend him to get into this industry without prior knowledge and just being a car nut? Nope. It's a very easy way to lose £100k and that £100k will not provide you with enough financial support to start and run a 30-35 car site properly. You should take a course on HP and PCP finance. There are a few out there ranging from £600 a day - £5,000 for a 5 day certificated course. My finance advisers are sent on these with Santander and I also ensure they pass a SAF test every year to ensure their knowledge of the finance aspect in the used car market is kept up-to date. I've recommended all the dealers I know to do the SAF test as it's a great way to ensure you know what you need to know and refresh your brain on things that have changed or you've forgotten. One of the biggest things in business is to know what you offer and know it inside out, it just so happens in this industry, there is A LOT to know. What many people don't understand is the overheads for any business but for a car dealer, it's astronomical. As mentioned previously we were paying A/T nearly £10k per month for only 80 cars, 1 bill per month for only advertising was just shy of £10k. Just don't forget your overheads... Regular Monthly Payments: Wages - You WILL need a sales manager with at least 10 years of experience at a decent sized used car showroom to help you. You'll need to pay £500 + bonuses per week for a decent one with knowledge of the industry and not one of the sales staff from a car supermarket as they are not really trained at all. At the end of the day a salesman can sell anything but the sale manager can direct the company in the right direction so a good one is a MUST. I can never stress the importance good staff play in help making a company successful. Pension Scheme Health Insurance Scheme (You can do without this, but I do advise it for later) Business Site Insurance Liability Insurance Cover Business Trade Insurance (You may be able to tie in within the same company) Business Rent Business Rates Business Bills (electricity, gas, Site Bills Repair Works MoT Works Car Servicing Car Preparation Costs Advertising Costs Valeting Equipment Sundries Website Hosting Warranty Cover (in house or outsourced, it still costs) Stock Database and Invoicing Monthly Payment One Off Start-up Costs (12-15 cars, with £100k Budget) Stock Branding First Promo Advertising Website Setup Stock Database and Invoicing Setup Car Site Branding FCA Licence Fee Solicitors Fee to setup and Limit a New Company Trade Plates I may have missed something from this list, but there are a lot of overheads. Anyway, think it through hugely, as I've said, it's a quickfire way to lose A LOT of money. Do pro's and cons and think it through over a few months and months. Do a Risks and Challenges Assessment for everything. On a side note, if you're really into cars, a good sales manager at a large franchised main dealer can get around £72,800 per year if they show good enthusiasm, hit their targets and motivate their sales team to hit their targets. I've known someone as young as 27 to be a Sales Manager on this kind of pay. As I've said and highlighted above: "If a friend of mine had £100k of his money, with a site available to him like you have, would I recommend him to get into this industry without prior knowledge and just being a car nut? Nope. It's a very easy way to lose £100k and that £100k will not provide you with enough financial support to start and run a 30-35 car site properly." All the best with what you decide, just really do think it through.

As others have mentioned. Movex is the best company we have used so far to date.

Under £300 we scrap. Under £1,000 we trade out to a smaller local dealer that has cars upto £4k.

30 cars on your first stint... Brave if you ask me especially if you don't know anything about the industry or don't have any experience in running a car site but if that's your decision I wish you all the best. IMO start with a smaller site, 6-10max and see how you go, grow from your own experience and resources and you can't fall fail providing you move along with the times and stay on your game. Here's some advice to hopefully help out a little. 1st off you should sort out your trade insurance. Then figure out what you want to do with warranties etc. Take the responsibility yourself or outsource warranties to other companies. Personally I prefer to do the warranties in house, setting aside a set amount out of every car to cover any costs for a warranty job. I have a separate account for warranty funds. On average you can pay a warranty company between 110 - 170 per car for around 12 months warranty, just look into the cover as their products are associated with your company so your customers will review you for their product also. Don't cheap out on the warranty cover basically. Are you self funded or going for business/stocking loans? I personally don't do stocking loans and have been and am lucky enough not to need one, but 1 huge mistake I've seen many dealers make is not making sure you have enough in each vehicle to satisfy your outgoings. Sounds simple, but the business/stocking loans can get the better of you if mis-managed and I wouldn't recommend one for someone new to the motor industry. If your starting up in this way the risks are way greater than you think and my advice is to rethink this through. It's a tough industry, with a dog eat dog mentality and not just used cars, but from the big main agents also. Don't be kidding yourself that you'll start up and start selling a third of your stock off the bat. Be very careful, we've held off on opening another site towards the end of this year due to the market change. I'm not going to say what's changed as our market research gives us the head start against many of our competitors but many dealers have noticed a shift in their sales / balances. What products or services are you offering your customers? Are you MoT cars? Servicing Cars? Valeting / Repairing Cars? Are these things you are doing in house or are you outsourcing? A good valeter costs from 300 per week (21,000+ p/a). A good mechanic costs from 500 per week (£32,500+ p/a). You can probably outsource a local garage to do an MoT and service for £100, so a good place to start with little regular overheads, so you only pay when you sell. Advertising... Now here comes the dilemma. CarGuru's, Motors, Ebay, GumTree, AA Cars all have the same average costs. I believe in my area, South East, Motors is superb value for money with CarGurus a close 2nd. AutoTrader has become implausible for us now as it costs us to advertise there. Our monthly bill was just under 10k p/ for half our stock of 80 cars on 'Premium'. Over a 2 month period we sold 6 from AT, so the decision was made to cut out AutoTrader. Don't be fooled by their sale pitches, and not AutoTrader alone, I mean all of the advertising mediums. You do need to do/try everything, not all at once, but you should try all advertising possibilities for at least 3 months. I know some dealers, not many now, but a few that rely totally on Motors nowadays. Go back a year or 2 the same dealers where adamant AutoTrader was their sole advertising platform and nothing could beat it. Now these dealers are over 30k better off selling the same amount of stock. Just don't be afraid to cut off something that isn't working. Track your leads and completions profusely. When you get 5 minutes, look and track your stats, stats and stats. Finance... You'll need to apply to get an FCA licence to be able to offer finance packages with your vehicles. You should only do that really when you have enough stock. As you're new to the industry and want to be able to offer finance, then you should really look and download the FCA guide. LAW... You should also learn about Consumer Rights and Sales of Goods Acts from 1982 onwards to familiarize yourself with the cans and cants, that way you will not be in a pickle if someone challenges your knowledge of selling what is supposedly faulty etc. You can use companies such as Lawgistics who I've heard are very good, but why pay someone else and add an additional expense for something you can and quite frankly should learn. Nowadays, its simple, everything is online and free. Hope this helps