15Cars

Up until a few weeks back, I was using a local lad (full ADHD - totally hyper and incredibly difficult to deal with, but I felt sorry for him) to valet most of my cars. His usual rate (including shampoo/wet vac, machine polish where needed and under bonnet) is £90 and £110 for 4X4/7-seaters. I told him clearly that I planned to put a fair few jobs his way and I wanted a standard price for everything - we agreed on £75, but he was horrendously unreliable and the quality of his work went from good to not much better than the local Kurdish scratch and bodge. A few weeks back, I pulled the plug on him, woke my Dad up out of early retirement and we have started doing it ourselves, saving a lot and the standard is much higher. I'm in the South of England and stuff costs a lot here but I'm interested to know what fellow traders are paying for valets?

Good Evening Hope you're all well. Interesting past 4 weeks for me; sold a few lumpy bits (by my standards) and some rarer cheaper stuff (absolutely fully-loaded 2009 low miles, 1 owner £4k diesel Fiesta with low miles and tons of options etc) I could've sold a dozen times over - on reflection I could've easily stuck another £700-odd quid on the asking price - but I'm learning. Had one dead week where the phone literally didn't ring, despite having quality stock with low miles and low prices, followed by a week where I sold every single retail vehicle advertised and the phone kept ringing on historic ads. The dead week was rather worrying I will admit. I've been looking through my scrappy notes and it's never been clearer (to me at least) that AT is absolutely slaughtering Motors on my stock profile, so I've decided to call time on Motors for now. Found a nice trading site today through a friend of the family, so will soon have indoor 'showroom' for 15 vehicles and outdoor parking for 20-odd for not much more than I'm paying for my current yard, so I'm happy. Although tougher to find, my records are strongly suggesting I need to be finding nice condition 2-6k motors instead of the 10k+ stuff - they're quicker to turn around and the margins (again, for me at least) aren't dissimilar. Obviously, this could have everything to do with the fact that I'm currently trading from an appointment-only yard with a home-based office. Loads of phone calls on cheap white Audi/VW diesels from ROI... I still go to bed every night praying for those 2k oddballs that sell for 4k export overnight via BACS How are you getting on?

Thank you. Initially I was pulling crap from local auctions, dragging it back and sticking it up for sale on FaceBook a bit on the top. It’s quite easy to do 10+ a week this way if you’ve the time and budget, but of course, you start getting known for this and inevitably you face problems. After almost a couple of months doing that, I took the plunge and started with AT, eBay and Motors, I figured out exactly how I wanted my stuff prepped and what I wanted. By this time I’d built good relationships with a local paint shop, workshop, tyre shop and wheel refurbishment shop, they didn’t take me that seriously to begin with, but after I was appearing almost daily with more motors and paying same day, things changed. After I’d experienced a couple of lumpy deals from AT, I quickly forgot about flogging the crap and almost overnight became hugely more selective over what I was buying. Initially I was selling any and everything that looked cheap on the block, but now I seem to be doing well with low mileage, well spec’d diesel stuff between 2-12k. Yes of course, first thing flagged when I tried to register with auction houses and start my trade policy. In fact, the company that supplies my trade policy even wanted a previous category removed all together.

The ltd company/VAT number I use for this venture have existed since 2012 - I’m a newbie to the car game but not to business in general.

Thanks gents, your posts in particular have been very comforting when I've bought 10 motors and the phone hasn't been ringing :-) I once read on here that "the right cars at the right price will always sell" - how true that is! Cheers

I started with eBay, Motors and Auto Trader at the same time 2 months ago; Auto Trader has produced 30-odd deals, eBay about 10 and I can't actually remember if Motors has produced a single deal so far? From my experience, if I get just one phone call from an Auto Trader ad, it's 99% sold. eBay is hard work, loads of time wasters. Plenty of enquiries from Motors, but for me they don't seem to go anywhere. For now, I'd be happy to ditch eBay and Motors.

I've got a Nikon D5600 and an iPhone X. Admittedly, I am not the world's best photographer, but no matter how hard I try, the iPhone produces the best, most honest and hassle-free results every time. When I spend ages doing photos with the Nikon, the results look too good if that makes sense, they have a kind of dishonest 'magazine' feel to them which I do not think the punters want.

Hello Everybody I've been reading this forum for some time. I am a newbie. I've been trading 4 months and have sold about 60 vehicles. Sure, the first ones were done through FaceBook, and weren't prepped how they have been, plus I've bought some utter crap, but I'm in the green and I'm happy. The past month I feel like I'm really finding my feet; I've been sourcing privately and through advertising - so many situations I've read about on this forum have rang true with me, it's amazing. As a green horn, I think other newbies might find my observations helpful, so will add my views from time to time. I'm currently based at home with my stock of 5-20 cars in secure storage and viewing by appointment. I advertise with AT, Motors and eBay, although I'm likely to ditch Motors and eBay sooner than later. Cheers