EPV

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Posts posted by EPV

  3. Posted

    2 hours ago, NOACROSS said:

    This is the proverbial Marmite debate.  I hate them (love Marmite). 

    You're right- they are entitled to do what the want, they are losing loads of business by charging so much for so little.  Just how long will you put up with the price increases until you stop buying bacon?

    Many more would advertise with them if their prices weren't insane- and the public (the only ones AT care about) would have many more cars on there to choose from, and all their sponsored advertisers/banners etc would get more traffic/results : and that is what they don't get IMHO.

    The times they are a changing....

    To me, as long as I am getting value, the price is what the price is. Of course i’d like it cheaper but as far as i’m concerned, I squeeze every drop of value out of them. If you are someone who puts 15 photos up instead of 70, or doesn’t do a video, or makes an ad sound like a spec list, or don’t use the tools to find out what sells well in your locale, then you are leaving a lot of value on the table. As I said mate, you are making it work outside of AT. Power to you, I just can’t ever see me not using them. I get just as much out of them as they get out of me.  

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Earunder said:

    Best post I've read in a long long time.

    I get why people advertise with AT and I get why people don't.  What I don't get is why people constantly bring up AT and not get each others opinions and feel the need to indirectly show or prove they are the ones thinking correctly.

    There are no right or wrongs, no winners or losers, just a bunch of different opinions.

    Is it the most expensive? Yes
    Is SKY TV the most expensive? Yes
    Are Bacon Rashers from Tesco the most expensive? Yes

    I have SKY TV and buy my bacon rashers from Tesco.  I do this as the product, for me, is the best.  Heck of course I wish everything was cheaper, my customers probably think the same about my business and products. 

    I don't have AT as it does not represent value for money for me and we do well with other media streams that others don't seem to.  That's the art of business.  Finding what works, what doesn't, what sells, what doesn't, etc.

    2nd best post!

    I’ve seen plenty complain about AT’s prices, like they are some sort of public service. The same people who charge as much as they dare for their cars. 

    Its a business they are a business, like all of us. They charge what they can. You pay it or you don’t and good luck to both sides of the fence. 

    • Like 3

  5. Posted

    21 minutes ago, RH Trading said:

    let me get this straight - the only way you're going to find out if the autotrader is working for you is by cancelling to see if it doesn't have an impact on your sales Arthur?

    as a franchised dealer do you have a marketing department? I'd be giving them a right kick up the arse. do they not measure it for you? I'm very surprised. My Click dealer website shows me exactly where my traffic is coming from. My call monitoring system shows me exactly how many calls I get and from where. I know exactly to the penny how much I spend on advertising and how much it costs and I budget and change campaigns accordingly, cut out what doesn't work, give new starters a few months trial and monitor and measure every penny. I notice you said before you're spending £900 per month on findandfundmycar yet you said you hadn't sold a car from it? that to me is expensive. get complaining to them

    we all wish the autotrader was cheaper and this has been the perennial cry from dealers for past 20 years, its nothing new. to be honest I don't care what anybody else is paying, I care what I'm getting. what does it matter if Arthur is paying less - its not working for him. even if it was free - its not working for him

    I cancelled AT thanks to some really bad advice 2 years ago for 3 months and encouraged to try Jim Reids autovolo and was the worst 3 months trading I had in 20 years (sales dropped from 30-35 to 11 per month)

    I posted this earlier on a different thread

    Motors - Cost £480 pm - 30 cars advertised  - 3 emails, no sales in 6 months. Profit from sales as a direct result of Motors - Loss of £2880

    Findandfundmycar - Cost £245 pm -  30 cars advertised no enquiries no sales in 2 months. Profit from sales as a result of findandfundcar - Loss of £490

    AutoTrader - Cost £2593 pm - 30 cars advertised - 57 phone calls, 19 calls from mobile app, 17 emails, 7 part ex leads (no deals) 4 finance leads (2 deals done) 22 direct sales - LAST MONTH! - Profit from sales as a result of autotrader £14,107 (net after advertising)

    I wish it was cheaper and am not overjoyed with paying more but would be even more pissed off if I was paying that and not selling any cars or making any profit.

    cancelling to see if you can do without it seems like saying I don't think I need oxygen so will try not to breath for a day

    Question for Arthur - are you expecting to sell more cars or less due to this? Good luck

    this is my own opinion, I know it doesn't work for everyone and it does for some but I encourage everyone to measure, if it doesn't work cancel - find what works for you but. don't make the mistake I made 2 years ago. things are tough enough as they are guys

    +1. 

    Power to those that manage without Autotrader but you need to fish where the fish are. The majority of the fish are swimming around Autotrader. Fact. 

  7. Posted

    I know that Arfur Dealy does well out of high mileage cars but he does really great videos and shows the car's condition and history, he only seems to buy cars in really good nick that have been looked after.

    As ever, "it depends" springs to mind.

    People won't buy a 207 with 120,000 miles on with a patchy history (rightly so) but a 3 litre 4 x 4 with a long ticket and having  been serviced on the button will be attractive to lots.

  8. Posted

    28 minutes ago, Mark101 said:

    Do you mind me asking, why did you pay so much for that car? They're really rather undesirable round my way so I assume they must sell really well round your way?

    Sorry about the formatting, no idea what happened

  9. Posted · Edited by EPV

    There’s really no need to offer a 12 month warranty on a car like that. 3 months is sufficient enough to keep the punters happy in that respect, it also depends on whether you think someone will ask for one. Some people don’t stop talking about them as if they’re some sort of magical pixie dust that prevent cars breaking and others don’t even mention them. But you can def trim some costs back by offering a 3 month one. 

    Re background, I agree it’s best to have uniform background but i’d find someone that has some sort of hardstanding and doesn’t have other cars in the background. Just my 2 cents. 

  10. Posted

    4 hours ago, Arthur thicken said:

    He has to give you the opportunity to fix it, you then return the car, if the problem re occurs he can ask for a refund, less usage, I’ve done this so have experience of it. If he wants his money back Tell him you will refund him under the terms of the consumer rights act 2015, ask him if he’s happy with that, if he is then he has to return the car to you, let’s say he’s paid £1500 for the car and had it 40 days, you can deduct usage at a daily rate, in this case say £25 per day which comes to £1,000. If the car is in the same condition as you sold it that’s fine, if there’s damage you can deduct for that also. You have 30 days to pay him from the day he returns it. I’ve done this, it’s the law.

    Sort of.

    He can ask for a refund straight away, up to 30 days. It would be down to the dealer to prove that the fault did not exist at the point of sale. If he can't, the customer is in a much stronger position. A properly worded PDI, with a proper worded receipt, makes it nigh on impossible for the customer to prove the fault was there at the point of sale and thus, has to give you a chance to repair it. 

  11. Posted

    If I may;

    You've parked your car in a puddle. It doesn't take a minute to find a better spot that isn't showing a car in a muddy puddle. Also, try and find a spot where cars aren't visible in the background. The first thing I saw when I clicked one of those photos was a red car in the background. Not what you want, obviously.

    In terms of pricing, I think you're about £500 heavy. At the end of the day, it's your car, you price it up how you want. But if you're approx £500 over market value, you'd better have a good reason why and with all due respect, a car parked in a puddle in what is obviously some sort of nature trail/parkland car park isn't a good reason .I think the AT valuations are pretty much spot on, the majority of the time. Without getting into an AT debate, they are by far the biggest automotive platform online. They get more views than all of the other platforms combined. So with that in mind, it's reasonable to conclude their price indicators are accurate. They range from Good Price, Great Price and Priced Low. Whether we like it or not, buyers are influenced by these indicators, I've seen plenty of people bemoan the Car Guru's indicators because unfortunately in this internet age, buyers are price savvy. So they WILL look at the price indicators.

     

     

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    Motors has been poor for me as well, their website is fkin awful, just clangs around the place and makes you want to click off it straight away.

    Anyway, interesting challenge and look forward to the results!

  14. Posted

    1 hour ago, Arfur Dealy said:

    Mark, surely you understand you need your own website to be believed and trusted by your customers.  CarDealer5 is fantastic value 

    I've got a privately made one but I'm giving some serious thought to defecting to CD5, their back end stuff is excellent.

  15. Posted

    Fair enough, I must say I had in my mind you was a bit of a worrier, clearly i’m thinking of someone else. 

    I wonder what is going through their head. Are they looking for more than a refund? Who died and made them god of data protection?!

  16. Posted

    The previous owners details are all on the V5 aren’t they, for the world and it’s wife to see. 

    Tell them to bring the car back, you’ll give them a refund and anything above and beyond that ignore them and/or tell them to fuck off. You didn’t put the previous owners details on the bills/invoices, any reasonable person would welcome as much paperwork back up to a car as possible. No doubt if you tippexed out the previous customers details the screamer would be calling you out for foul play. Give them their money back and don’t enter into any further discussions on anything else. Send them the offer of a full refund by recorded delivery and email. 

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    7 minutes ago, met said:

    40yr old vehicles exempt, why? Just because a car is "old/valuable/adored/owned by enthusiasts" doesn't automatically mean it is safe and legal?

    Makes a mockery of the whole thing. A 3 year old car with slightly worn brake discs gets an minor fault but a 40 year old car that could have Fred Flinstone as brakes gets waved through no test. Load of old cobblers. 

  18. Posted

    4 minutes ago, tradex said:

    The guy sounds like a twat, refund and move onB)

    Entirely my sentiments. The waters have been muddied by allowing him to record the fault prior to him dicking around with the car. There’s no provision for that under the cra. It’s either a fault, which means a refund or repair (dependent on whether the fault was present at the point of sale or not, which in itself is reliant on a properly worded PDI) or its not a fault, in which case he’s messing around changing bits of a car he might not need to. 

    The situation is unclear so the best thing to do is to refund the bloke, fix the issue (if there even is an issue) and sell the car to someone else. 

    • Like 1

  19. Posted · Edited by EPV

    43 minutes ago, KARLOS1982 said:

    Thanks for your responses. question is he is he entitled for full refund when he made me aware about the fault within 30 days or can I charge him percentage for using the car because he decided to  reject the car after 30 days? Many thanks

    Did you carry out a full properly worded PDI and did he sign it. If not, you’re exposed. If you did, he has to prove the fault was there at the point of sale. It’s not as simple as “is he entitled to a refund” without us knowing the exact circumstances. 

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    I can’t seem to buy anything at bca. Despite having a gold card I can’t get near the sale prices on the good stuff. Plenty goes through under cap avg but it’s largely crap spec, weird colours etc. Basically stuff that will sit around for yonks. 

    Imo, auctions are for selling, not buying. 

    To answer the question though, low mileage stuff with a bca assured report with a relatively new ticket and decent service history, bought online would be my preferred choice. Everyone else’s too it seems judging by the prices. 

  24. Posted

    8 hours ago, BHM said:

    Too true! If a punter starts pulling the car to bits it doesn’t take me long to say “It’s a secondhand car so if you’re here to crab it to death just leave it” and my favourite “Increase your budget or lower your expectations”. After I’ve given them a 30 second lecture they either stop their bullshit or they start whinging & whining again which results in me terminating the viewing.

    I stopped taking too much flannel from punters a long time ago. I refuse to listen to pisspoor negotiations centring on non-existent faults and alleged defects on secondhand cars. I find it annoying when a chancer is telling me my car is defective (when it clearly isn’t) just to attempt to get a discount - “Leave it, it’s clearly not for you”, remove the key from the ignition, shut the door and they get the message.

     

    I’m yet to experience that joy as I insist all my potential customers watch the videos I make. I did have a cracker yesterday though. I’ve got a shed up for sale, a part ex. I’ve advertised it brutally honestly, photos, videos, description of fault etc. It’s £700. 

    I had a bloke ring yesterday, asking if there was anything wrong with the car. I asked if he had read the advert in full. His reply? “No I haven’t, it’s too long”

    I told him politely to sling his hook and go and bother someone else. Well, not politely. It boggles the mind how some people get through the day. 

  25. Posted

    1 hour ago, KARLOS1982 said:

    Hi guys, thank your replys, 

    I know what you saying regarding the reply after 1. letter, but this is what the guy wrote in first letter. 

    " I am going to have fuel filter changed and I will check the connections on the injector rail to see if these are corroded however, I am registering my issue with the car before exercising my right to have the vehicle repaired by you under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

    If I cannot find the fault then I shall take it to a garage and pay for a full diagnosis. Once I know the problem then I will inform you of this"

    So after reading this in his first letter I think I was right to just sit down and wait, hoping fuel filter cures the problem, because he hasn`t ask me to take any action......well that`s the way I understood it.

    What you should have done, easy to say with hindsight, is tell him to bring the car to you for diagnosing and repair. Allowing him to play parts darts with it muddies the water. 

    There is no premise to “register an issue” before exercising his right to repair under the CRA. If there’s an issue, that isn’t wear and tear and was present at the point of sale, he has a right to repair. He doesn’t have the right to fuck around trying all sorts and when that fails chuck it back at you. 

    I’d say as it stands, you’re best off fixing the issue and putting it down to experience. He sounds like a pain in arse elect  to be honest.