Lakeside

Two this week for us so far, with two viewings booked for the weekend, and there was me moaning last week I hadn’t shifted anything for ages.

All our cars are valeted and we do get any obvious scuffs and dents done prior to sale. I’ll admit we don’t make them absolute showroom condition but we’re not asking showroom prices. I could understand if people were turning up and walking away but that’s the problem, customers arnt even turning up. I do have a good record of sale to first viewers when they do eventually turn up though.

To be honest it’s not so much the profits we are bothered about at the min, as said we both have other jobs to top up the income, and we are still learning about where the best profits are. It’s more the fact we’re not even getting phone calls, I understand this time of year is quiet but it’s been like it for the last 12 months for us.

We’re midlands based, we’re only trying to be the cheapest as we feel if we can’t even compete at these prices we’ve got no chance aiming higher. ill be honest we have had a couple of £1000 profits on a car but that is only now and again on cars we’be been lucky to get cheap on a quiet auction day, our average margin is under £500, more around £200 on a few recently plus a couple of break evens.

Thanks all so far. I have been in the Motortrade for over ten years, just not the selling game. Yes the insignia was just an example but I can’t even get £1700 for it! They’re selling for more at auction. we definitely won’t be jumping in balls deep anytime soon, I just can’t see how some of the full time dealers can actually make a living from it especially with bigger overheads? We feel we’ve tried everything but failed so far. Autotrader was my last hope as i’ve read a few members on here saying it’s the only place worth advertising but we’re still getting no interest off there. Surprisingly the last couple of cars have sold via Facebook despite all the “last price” idiots.

Evening all, just joined the forum as I’m after a bit of advice. Me and a mate have been dabbling in selling cars for a few years now on a part time basis, we both have full time jobs in other trades, but are really struggling to find how you guys actually make a living from it? Our dream is to both go into it full time but if we had it’s safe to say we’d both be bankrupt by now. We think we’ve done everything properly, we have trade insurance, bca account, another private auction account, a rented storage compound for stock, card machines, receipt books etc. We are purely internet based and advertise on eBay classified, autotrader, gumtree, schpock and Facebook marketplace but it doesn’t matter what type of car we buy we are really struggling to sell. We have around ten cars in stock at any one time and have tried everything from bangers up to £10k cars, from mainstream to sports to prestige and yet nothing seams an easy sell? Majority of the time our cars are priced within the cheapest in the country too. For instance currently we have an 09 Insignia cdti in stock, perfect car, mileage is a little high at over 120k but a long mot and it’s cheap, yet it’s been for sale for three months without a single phone call! I’ve dropped the price so low now I’ll barely be breaking even. Another one recently sold a 59 1.6 focus, been advertised since around March this year and only eventually went last month at cost, again barely any interest. What was more annoying is an identical car sold for £500+fee’s more at the block whilst it was for sale. Makes me wonder why dealers arnt even buying out cars? Obviously we are selling a few in between with decent margins but they literally are few and far between. Sold two this month but nothing in October and only a couple in September.

I hate to say it but I think it is legit. i had the exact same notice served on one of my cars the end of last year, no clamp just the paper warning. Two months later I received a fine through the post stating where and when the car was reported untaxed even though it was in trade. I believe they just use the notices when they run out of clamps but still report you for the offence.