RJEauto

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Posts posted by RJEauto

  3. Posted

    20 hours ago, Anglo9 said:

    Hi all , gone very quiet for us , may just be stock profile as a few colleagues seem busy but maybe my ads need freshening up and I'm not convinced about my wobbly videos with lift/porno music ! Maybe delete those and offer a walk around on request ? 

    Any advice appreciated chaps 

    https://www.autotrader.co.uk/dealers/hampshire/hook/moto-exchange-ltd-28719/stock?sort=price-asc&page=1&dealer=28719&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&advertising-location=at_cars&advertising-location=at_profile_cars

    If it's any condolence we've been pretty quiet too compared to last year.

    I would definitely look at redoing some of the photo's, a lot of them are too bright / not clear. Even if you edit the photo's you have it's surprising what difference it makes.. 

    On another note, we always do well with CR-V's so if you want to trade any of the diesel EX's to free up cash and diversify your stock - drop me a message :-)

    -Kelly

  4. Posted

    Welcome!

    If it's any consolation, December was awful for us - hardly any leads, and sold 3 all month with 18 in stock. We've also had a slow start to January.

    We have Ebay/Gumtree package without Motors for all of our stock (up to 25 cars) which costs £260 p/month and then AT for part of our stock (8 slots I think) which is 895.92 + VAT.

    We're a fairly new site (opened just over a year ago with limited funds) and still building on our stock levels but tend to do better from AT, definitely more consistent sales and less time wasters than other platforms.

    I'd also recommend looking at Facebook (both business marketplace and building an audience on a business page) - there are lots of time wasters on there but we tend to do at least 1 or 2 per month with very little spend.

    Just remember what works for one person may not work for everyone else and there is a reason AT is much more expensive that it's competitors. That being said, there are dealers on here that have binned them off altogether and still run a good business.

    Best of luck!

    -Kelly

  6. Posted

    10 hours ago, BIGNIT said:

    Thanks for advice everyone, in conclusion I think only way to know its for me is to have a go.

    Who would be best company to deal with for me. Ideally one who would help with FCA applications and would accept customers at this price point.

    And should have mentioned I run my business on an appointment only basis from an industrial estate not a traditional forecourt. (Dont know if that will make any difference)

    We use Blue motor finance (prime) and connected car finance (broker) both offer great comms for us and helped with initial FCA application

  7. Posted

    On 11/3/2019 at 9:09 AM, MarkTVS said:

     

    Wheel refurb full car (powdercoated) giving them the car £200 inc vat

    Diamond cut refurb giving them the car £360 inc vat

     

     

    On 11/3/2019 at 9:56 AM, Casper said:

    wheels £200-£240 

    diamond cut wheels from memory think the last set was £385 an associate organised that so cant be more precise  .sorry. 

    Our diamond cut wheels cost us the same as Powdercoating (£200), done by 2 different local companies.. 

    Obviously we do all of our own mechanical and valeting with the exception of MOT's

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    On 10/24/2019 at 11:42 AM, Kieran said:

    Hi guys, I'm a professional detailer, based in a unit, mainly dealing with paint correction and ceramic coatings. Recently, I've been looking into starting up as a motor trader, as I have the space and equipment (all the detailing equipment, plus tools for any minor work) to prepare, buy and sell cars basically - I've also got a great relationship with a garage who can deal with more involved work and MOTs.

    Over the last year or so, I've kind of been buying and selling cars on a private level, bought a Suzuki Swift as a daily runabout on Facebook for £400 drove it for 4/5 months sold it for £650, then got an MX5 for £600 a couple weeks later sold it for £950, then back into another Suzuki Swift bought for £300 sold for £750 a few months later, now in another car which I bought for great price and if I sell it I'm looking at £600 'profit' - this didn't start of as intentional, just wanted a daily car that wasn't going to depreciate and then slowly turned into make a couple hundred here and there. 

    It's something I want to start doing a more serious level, I've been to a few local car auctions with a friend. Bought and sold a few cars now since August, and we are looking to doing it together. So I'm basically here to reach out to look for some advice, or have any pointers as to where to look for solid advice.

    There's a few things that I'm unsure of of.

    • Motor trade insurance. We're both under 25, which I've been told is going to make getting trade insurance difficult. Would it be possible to have trade insurance in my dad's name, if we involved him in the business? So that he (my dad) would be the main policy holder, and we be additional ones - or is that going to be just as difficult as getting trade insurance ourselves? (just to confirm, not looking to front the business, my dad would be involved in the actual business)
    • Responsibilities. Is there anywhere I can find information about the responsibilities you have as a trader? As I'm aware there's responsibilities you have as a trader, when it comes to fixing problems with cars if they have issues after selling them. I've had a good search online and all I can find is the consumer side of things, which doesn't answer a lot of my questions. The cars we will be starting off with are going to be in the price range of £500-3000. So 7+ years old with a fair amount of miles, and cars of this nature are obviously more likely to have problems, so it's something that is a bit concerning for us, and we want to make sure we understand the responsibilities we would have a seller.

    Any advice would be appreciated. I apologise if this is not the right place to ask for advice!

     

    Thanks.

     

     

    Welcome 

    My partner, Ryan, is a detailer and did that full time prior to us opening a year ago so similar starting situation to yourself.

    Insurance - If your dad is actually involved in the business, could be possible but I believe the insurance "policyholder" is normally company and it's director/s so may need to look into this. I'm 23 and Ryan is 27, he's the director and policyholder of the business which wasn't an Issue, I'm covered for business use, SD&P. I can drive anything business use but our cover has me limited to 1600cc for SD&P, which in our case isn't an issue.

    Responsibilities - as others have said, read up regarding CRA as much as possible. We make sure everything leaves with long MOT's, fresh service and full inspection, PDI sheet signed by customer, etc. They are cars, you will have issues occasionally, but treat your customers fairly and prep everything as well as you can - it's all you can do.

    Good Luck! Kelly :)

  11. Posted

    13 hours ago, NOACROSS said:

    50% you’re doing very well!

    I wanted to hate Bookface, and resisted it for a long time. 
    It does produce sales, but it’s a slow burner & takes a while to build it. I don’t think the quality of punters/questions is any worse than from elsewhere. In fact, I think they trust you more. 

    (Rory has 12 thousand followers or something heroic, so I guess that takes a long time? We have a 1500 ish, so a way to go yet.) 

    The difficultly for me being SO anti-social in general, is bringing myself to come up with content to keep the interest. And finding interesting content to post is a challenge. 

    Thanks NOA.

    We have a small audience on our page (1800ish) but do well out of our sponsored posts. 

    We do best with Facebook with our lower value stock, although that could come down to area etc

  13. Posted

    Last Car we bought without a log book was a repo. 

    V62 in customers name but couldn't tax as it wasn't registered in the trade (was therefore still registered to prev owner), held the vehicle until our customer received the logbook and could tax it which was around 4/5 weeks

  14. Posted · Edited by RJEauto

    7 minutes ago, J.T said:

    The problem is BHM is that customers read those reviews, as I've had a couple of people recently mention them. So I wonder how many people might have been put off by those reviews. 

    False reviews are killing us - read my separate thread. (It is in the private section)

    Internet is a fantastic thing but the problem is you have dickheads that can purposely write whatever they like to try and tarnish your reputation

    Can't do anything these days without fear of offending somebody who may post something online that becomes a nightmare to try and remove

  15. Posted

    We switched from free CG to paid package around 4 months ago and so far so good. Leads are limited but we've had quite a few sales so ROI isn't bad at all, we've had better success with some of our lumpier stock on CG than AT. However, I don't like the dashboard, vehicle pricing check and the amount of info it gives the customer

  16. Posted · Edited by RJEauto

    Not long after we opened, we took an old 1.3diesel Hyundai Getz in for sale. Customer was "devastated to part with it", decent MOT, looked fine offered him £500 to get the deal done (didn't bother driving it out of the yard). Happy customer leaves with his new i20, Ryan takes the Getz to the local shop, starts a 3 point turn and cuts out in the middle of the road. Managed to get it going again but there was no reverse! Ended up spares or repairs on eBay with fuel and gearbox problems.

    Had another customer a week or two later, PX and old focus. Lives 2 streets away so had walked up to test drive the Volvo he wanted. Mileage on PX please, 103k he said. No problem, we'll give you £700 for it. Deal done, he returns that evening for handover, our mechanic test drives the PX which is fine and new car goes out. About to ring the guy who has our cheap stuff, looking through the MOT history - last MOT 180K miles, check the car 198k miles!!

    A few lessons quickly learnt, thankfully they weren't too expensive!

    -Kelly-

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    1 minute ago, Grantlfc81 said:

    I'm going to re photo it..... The fact it hasn't had a call in 3 months is absolutely killing me! i've just dropped it to what I paid for it now. sick of the sight of it now!

    GLWS 

    FYI We sold our XC70 (the white one) for £11990  via a Car Gurus lead. We're on the paid package. Didn't seem to get much interest through AT though

  20. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Grantlfc81 said:

    Literally for life of me cannot sell this car.  Average market price on auto trader is saying £9000 ish. Ive now priced it a grand below for over a 6 weeks and I cant even get a phone call on it.  Its such a lovely car. 7/8 Volvo stamps and 1 owner with Nav.

    I bought this thinking it was an absolute banker haha.  Never a again. 

    https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201906038621684?utm_source=triggered_emails%26utm_medium=Email%26utm_campaign=email_a_friend

    Found a spelling mistake in the first line... must be where I am going wrong

     

    From an outside perspective, I'd do the following:

    Re-take photos - some of them look fine, others not so great. The Wheel photo - definitely add tyre shine, not everyone likes it but makes a huge difference on the photo's. The door card photo is blurry.

    I'd put the price back up and show a "Great Price" indicator rather than "Low Price" indicator.

    Volvo buyers don't tend to be the last price brigade, they want a quality car. We recently sold an XC70 - 

    Not sure if you can see the old facebook ad?

    We have another one in stock atm - https://www.rjeautomotive.co.uk/used-volvo-xc70-ebbw-vale-south-wales-2330050

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    14 hours ago, MarkTVS said:

    Should be no problem with getting the v5 however it will show on hpi as import and I don’t think you can loose the ni number unless you put a private plate in it. 

    I have sold a few and never had any hassle.

    We've had a few NI cars and never shown as import on Hpi, I thought it would only be Irish cars that would show as NI is part of UK and although number plates & MOTs are different there they are issued with a standard UK log book??