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
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