Dealer

This is bang on, I always look at it this way and if you have any reservations on any marks, how it drives etc then disclose everything beforehand, even take a video and send to the customer perhaps. The last thing you need is for the car to get there and them to say they don't want it, complete waste of your time then and you end up having to readvertise it.

We too approx 8 to 9 months ago started getting the anonymous emails and quite regularly in fact....... This is exactly what sucked us in to signing up to a package with them......... I think it was approx £800 per month off the top of my head. 2 to 3 months ago we cancelled it, as soon as we had signed up I noticed the enquiries seemed to get less, as time has gone on its just been more noticeable that it's not working. The retail values they provide are more laughable than cap! I'd love to be a retailer getting those prices! I also sympathise with you Nigeldalley as I get fed up of the ebay beggars and derogatory offers from the bumtree customers too.

With decent margins though surely so 12 would mean that you are well in profit?

Having say 15 approx for sale how many per month do you turn over.

I have been thinking exactly this for quite some time, if we had to rely on walk ons we'd be lucky to get half a dozen sales per year, with a unit it's surely working around you rather than being tied to the site 9am till 6 or even 7pm every day. What sort of cost is a decent size unit costing though, how many do you stock and is it only suitable to higher end stuff?

Thanks for the reply, it's a decent location on a main road through a semi rural town/village with approx room for 27 vehicles, there's also more room to the rear. Points noted about the warranties, really pleased with the other responses I've had so far too

Out of curiosity, what sort of size stock levels are some of you holding and are you putting them all on autotrader? Cost for 30 cars is well over 3k a month

I have found that it tends to be the least expensive stuff that doesn't do so well on autotrader, maybe it's just a geographical thing with the area we are in.

HI, most likely just put the more expensive stuff on there, as they sell I'll just tick the boxes on the back of our website to move another into that slot. It's way too expensive to put everything on autotrader.

Thanks for this!

Good evening, only found this site the day before yesterday and have already enlightened myself with some of the information I have read so far. I have been in a partnership for the last 2 years and have less experience in the trade than the others. The time has now come to go it alone (these partnerships are hard work) and i am taking over a small 30 car site myself. Few questions to put to you chaps if you don't mind. 1) with only 30 cars in stock and an obvious lack of footfall do you have to sit there all day every day waiting for a punter or do you think it will be ok to try and push people down the appointment route to free yourself up to run errands and vehicles around etc thus saving on other staff costs. I'm already aware that all our business is internet based and we'd be lucky if 6 walk ons/drive by's a year led to sales 2) warranties, now I know about the self administering policy route but does anyone actually do an in-house system where they just pay for any work that needs doing on any vehicles and how do they word their terms and conditions. There's a guy down the road who just states 1 month, engine and gearbox return to base only, dont know how he gets away with this. 3) advertising, what works best for you, I'm looking to get ten autotrader slots to start along with eBay and possibly motors, any other recommendations, I don't want to use exchange and fart and am currently on the fence with slumtree due to the constant beggars offering paltry amounts for your vehicles. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm sure I'll have some more questions in time.