SouthernTrader

You haven’t heard back because you absolutely kicked them in the nuts

I use the compliance guys for £25 a month, I don’t do huge amounts of finance deals but I happily pay them that to not have to fill in those online Gabriel forms. Only need 1 deal a month to make it easily pay for itself. In terms of brokers I think Octane Finance might be able to help you out if you cancel FCA but not 100% sure.

Very busy but stock has been hard to come by. Last week I managed to get a few under book so for the first time in a while.

No legal requirement for any warranty to be given but the consumer has rights on any car bought from a dealer. Understanding the CRA2015 is one of the many things we need to know in this job. It protects the customer but also us sellers so get your head round it. In my opinion selling cheap px cars through your business is just a headache. The article below gives a good summary and should answer your questions. https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/rejecting-a-car/

Private section has no spammers! It’s a bit quiet in there these days though

I’m down South but pay £100 a panel, £80 for a bumper corner.

Been very busy until a week ago then it’s gone a bit quiet. To be honest I was glad it did as I needed some time to catch up on prep, paperwork, buying etc etc.

Nice to hear of a good news story in our industry! Fair play to the chap

If you’ve given them the lawgistics distance selling regulations then you can charge them a £1 a mile after 20 miles as stated in the terms. So at least if they keep it for a bit and use it you can get some money from them.

This wouldn’t work I don’t think think. VAT registration isn’t done on a calendar year it’s on a rolling 12 month basis. So you would have to continually stay under the 86k mark on a rolling basis. I think that’s how it works anyway - someone will correct me if I’m wrong!

Agree with the above, few things to add. Only 20 photos? Is this the limit when you don’t have an AT package, if not add more. Double the amount to at least 40 photos especially as people can’t physically view right now. This may be more relevant with people buying a high mileage older Merc than a small Honda Jazz but your company has no online presence. You don’t have any Autotrader reviews as you aren’t on a package but also no Google business page with reviews or a website that I can see? I found a LSP Motors on Facebook but there’s no reviews, photos or any posts. The sort of punter buying that is likely to check you out online first and if they can’t find anything they are going to go on to the next advert who has 5 star reviews etc. The car itself has a nice service history and the advert description is good so I can’t really fault that too much. Hopefully that doesn’t come across as negative but just constructive advice. For years I didn’t have any online presence and for the cheaper stuff I don’t think it matters but at that price bracket and that car it will. Best of luck

Sorry Zahoor, that makes no sense!

Back of the net just reminds me of Alan Partridge

I’ve seen them posting lots on the Facebook groups - seem to be making a big push on social media. Still remains to be seen how they can compete with the big boys. I’ll be interested if anyone has had any success with them

This is what I did early on, and I still learn lots now - although it’s definitely quieter on here now. Go back to the start and read all the threads, might take a few weeks. By the time you’ve done that you will have a good grasp on CRA15, buying stock, advertising, photographing, part exchanges and all the pitfalls we encounter. Plus you’ll find some entertaining old threads too. Also at the top of the page is the How to be a car dealer guide, it’s £10 - buy that, it will help you and it will help fund the people who run the forum. You’ll get more than your £10 back in terms of knowledge The rest you’ll learn with experience. Good luck

Absolutely, in this day and age any little competitive advantage should be used to your advantage I say! Cheers, that’s what I’ve done and put it on all my adverts! I’ll stick it up in my office too

Morning all, yesterday I got an email saying I’d been highly rated on Autotrader. It looks like they will send out some stickers to put up on my office. Question for you guys who have had this before. Do they automatically update your adverts to say “Highly rated” or do you guys just screenshot the picture and add it to one of the photos on your advert?

I’d never take investment from someone else wanting to take a piece of my profit while I did all the leg work or partner with someone - personal preference but I like to answer to me alone and know all my profits are mine (and the tax and VAT man unfortunately) If you want to expand can’t you take a bounce back loan or get capital yourself?

You’ll have fun (and stress) doing that part time and might even make a decent side income but as a full time business I’d say no. Your time will be swallowed trying to find, fix and retail these cars. Also realistically how many are available at any one time and via what source? Could you for example source 10-15 a month that you’d need when the business is full time? While you might take the best part of a month, sourcing, fixing and prepping a couple of 90s Mercs, you could have bought and sold 10 “retail ready” modern cars. Don’t let me put you off btw, if you want to try it go for it, you may find down the line you could stock modern Mercs and other newer cars but have a few nice 90s classics too to keep that side of your passion going. Anyway, good luck

Sounds great, I’ll register now

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/03/chancellor-announces-help-for-self-employed/ Obviously that’s not official government site but that’s the link I’ve seen doing the rounds “If you're a company director and pay yourself a salary or dividends you won't be covered by this scheme” My accountant also emailed me confirming as much, they are awaiting clarity if we can furlough ourselves as directors. Lots of mixed messages. I don’t know for sure either way, just going on the information I’m getting. I’ll wait for further clarity from the accountants

Also doesn’t apply if you are a director or a Ltd company unfortunately which I guess applies to a lot of us. My hope is we can be trading in 8 weeks again but what will business be like when we go back?

I’ll update this post when I’ve got some results to compare with

I’ve just got rid of priority listing purely to run an experiment on how many views, sales etc I get and I’ll judge it from there if it’s worth getting back. All you can do is try different things, run them for say 3 months and monitor results

Sold a cheap part exchange last week £995 - a grand under its retail as it had a few little issues. 4600 views on the advert before a viewing let alone a sale! Loads of interest from people not reading the advert and thinking it was a proper retail car which were turned down for viewings. Got me thinking what’s the most views you’ve had on a car before you actually sold it?