Max Branning

For me its a case of weighing it up, will i sell MORE cars because i am set up for finance, unless it is considerably more than i am doing now i am not sure if its worth the hassle and cost. This is why i am asking any other traders at this price range how they find it either with or without finance. If i was doing cars £4000 and over i would say finance is a must as this sort of money is harder to come by for customers. The vast majority of the cars i sell go on the card and many customers love the 0% credit card options, i think this is easily done on say a 2995 car. What worries me slightly is that many customers who CAN afford to buy or have access to a credit card will instead choose to take finance if you offer it. This means that you are not actually selling any more cars just offering a different way for people to buy, i am only interested if my turnover will increase dramatically.

We mostly do cars priced from 1500 - 4000 and we are not set up for car finance. We are selling them ok so no problem there but we have had several occasions where customers have asked "do you do finance" and when we say no they leave. I am wondering if getting set up will make a great difference to our turnover and if its worth the effort and cost of getting set up (looking at the fca website it looks complicated). I have been told but am not sure on this that it is possible for a customer to sort out there own car finance and the funds can be sent to the dealer even without FCA registration, not sure if this is true or even allowed. To any other dealers working at this sort of price range are you set up for finance and do you think it makes much difference to your turnover.

The online auctions are trade only and as far as i know you must be VAT registered to be a member. Why cant the physical auctions be made to operate like this. I just dont get in this day and age with all the soga rules etc how a private individual can go to a "trade" auction and buy a car.

I still dont see how they can sell a car on "trade terms" ie "sold as seen" to a private buyer. If i started selling cars out of my place as trade sales to the general public i would be shut down surely.

Whitestone where is all your advertising done now? and are you getting the same level of interest without AT?

Has anybody used these guys for there smart repairs and what are they like in terms of quality and price? Any other recommendations? There doesnt seem to be any independent people anywhere near me doing this kind of stuff only a few of the main chains ie chips away, revive etc.

I also think it should be made harder for people to buy from car auctions keeping it TRADE only. I see loads of the bandit traders at the auction house you can spot them a mile away. Unless you are a VAT REGISTERED TRADER you should not be allowed to buy a car at an auction in my opinion, not only to stop the bandit traders but also to stop a private buyer getting an unsafe car that has been unchecked and "sold as seen" quite legally. I still dont see how this can be allowed these days.

Yes and when your house floods out you have no comebacks as it was a cash job...same as when you buy a car from the roadside you just dont know what your getting. Saving £200 today could end up costing you £2000 down the line. James this is a very good idea.

I watched that show and the ex window fitter that was trying so hard to sell the cars was making me cringe...he was so frustrated at them walking he was almost in tears. I never let the customer push me around the cars are prepped well and priced well so they WILL sell maybe just not today. Do your best to get the deal done but normally you can just tell when there not coming back so let them go and waste someone elses time....

I had a woman yesterday go home and think about it. She rang back 2 hours later and paid a deposit over the phone. Keep the faith...

"No money back no Guarantee" Just write this on your receipts and all will be fine

The whole way car trading is done will be very different over the coming years, i am afraid to say but the day of the forecourt is dying. The business has now become an online market and so we will have to adapt to this. More and more traders will operate from home or cheap units/yards driving down the margins that can be made. I can also imagine the supermarkets offering an online only sevice basically where you see the car you want online maybe with a walk round video, you buy the car online and it is delivered to your door. A bit like how online grocery shopping is going, in 20 years from now everything will be done online and nobody will go shopping at all...scary thought really.

I wonder what happens if the customer comes back on day 29 after ragging the car about and expects a refund because of some bullshit excuse..?

There is no catch and to be fair i like the website only trouble is RAC CARS is not known to the general public when searching for cars and so the site traffic is poor. But give it maybe a year or 2 and they may well be a contender.

So when pricing your cars do you go for the good old 95 price ie £2995 or maybe you choose the good old 99 ie 2999 I am seeing more dealers now not bothering with the good old prices and just rounding it up to 3000 as this can be more web efficient. How do you price yours and why?

You can normally tell when a customer is going to walk and if it means giving them back 100 quid to get it gone then just go with it. It is true what you say though about being priced competitively from the outset but some buyers just NEED a discount or they feel cheated...

To be fair knocking £200 off a £6000 car isnt a bad discount for you, always depends really what profit you have in the deal. Do your sums before it goes up for sale to allow for the discount.

For the sake of £5 i would probably just get a new set made up and give them to the customer leaving the set on the car now. They would have to be a very tricky customer not to be happy with that.

Has the log book come back with the original reg number? if so can you get some plates made up for the car before monday.

So how long do you usually hold stock before reducing the price or offloading to auction? I had a car recently that had been with me for 6 months that i stuck out for the asking price (cap retail) i got sick of seeing it every day so reduced the price by £300 to try and get it moving - it still sat for 2 weeks without a sniff so i thought you know what reducing the price is making no difference so i put the price back up to its original asking price. The very next day someone walked in and bought it at the full original price ! This has got me thinking that sometimes reducing the price is not always a wise move and holding out for what you think is fair is the way to go how does everyone else handle stock thats hanging about?

TML do you only use AA for your advertising? And what sort of prices do they charge?

Can we please have a list of genuine alternatives to Autotrader. The only other site that i have found to get any traffic from buyers is ebay motors so they must be a close contender. Any others?

Customers always like the sound of a 12 month bells and whistle warranty and it can help a sale especially if its included in the price BUT when the customers car develops a fault after 3 weeks it is very touch and go whether the warranty companies will pay out. After they have spent a week checking its mot history and service history and dragging there heels to make the customer pay for the repair themselves and then oh dear thats made the warranty void so they dont pay out. You then have the customer on your doorstep wanting answers. If the cars are going out prepared properly then probably 95% of your cars wont come back so imagine how much 95% of your annual warranty costs are. I know i am saving several thousand a year doing my own and my customers dont get the run around if something goes wrong so win win in my opinion.

As far as i am aware the buyer has 6 months to make a claim under the sale of goods but usually from my experience if they havent brought it back within the first month then you dont normally see them anymore especially as they knew they had a 1 month no quibble warranty. If a customer comes back to me after say 4 months i just use my judgement as to whether they are trying it on or not. If its a genuine fault and we can come to a reasonable agreement to get it sorted then so be it.

Remember whatever warranty you give the customer is still covered under the sale of goods act which is a totally different thing to a warranty. We basically give the customer 1 month or 1000 mile warranty included at the screen price there is no claim limit or any other get out clauses. If any genuine fault goes wrong with the car within this short time we will back it up and pay for it. After the 1 month we would only cover anything that is statutory under the sale of goods. In the last 12 months we have done around £2000 in "warranty" jobs but have sold over 100 cars so it probably breaks down to about 20 quid a car to us on average. I wouldnt touch most insurance backed warranties with a barge pole unless the customer wants a long term cover 2 years maybe then we would offer them something to buy from one of the usual companies, its up to them then its there money !