Craig F

Hi Steve If you are serious about this (which it sounds like you are) and have some experience in your field, please do give me a call as I can put you in touch with someone on the same page and may be of assistance. Regards Craig Fleming

Interesting topic this... I've just had my latest Merchant Provider statement through and on 12 Debit Card Transactions I completed last month for £110,000 of business my charges alone on that were £351.25. Total Merchant service charge for the month £433.67. This is of course not including the quarterly rental charge to the Machine provider. For me it's no longer sustainable. I remember when not that long ago my Merchant Fees on similar levels of business were around £40-£70 a month. I would rather ask the Client to pay by other means in the knowledge that the car I have is better prepared than any other they will go and look at, will have been still priced competitively against lesser prepared examples and give myself a £300 a month pay rise.

Well in terms of their dealership presentation etc I know they will be right on top of this as the owner is a pretty sharp operator with a keen eye. I had the pleasure of 4.5 hours on a train today to collect a car and read the Spring 2018 AM edition for the top 50 Independent Used Car dealers. Reading this further it once again was a turnover drum banging 8 or so pages. There was the occasional mention of Net Profit and in most cases it just furthered my alarm at the retained margin out of such vast volumes of turnover and volume of transactions. The difference between being in + position as opposed to negative - is a very, very fine line. My business model of using my own funds and wanting to take a higher margin from a £25k car than a £8k is clearly well out of date. When I sit and discuss Motortrade facts and figures with people in other industries they all tend to just look at it as total brain damage!

Car Dealer Magazine team; I was reading your article regarding Marsh Holdings and their record Turnover Figure but wondered if you had made a mistake? The article looks a big success story and I know they do a very good job in terms of customer service, their dealerships are always immaculate as I am based in their part of the world so from the outside looking in can't fault their operation and way they do business. However on reading the article showing their £31.1 Million turnover it then goes on to state their Pre-Tax profit rose to £69,190. Now I appreciate there could be more behind that Pre Tax Profit figure if they have settled maybe some heavy borrowing or invested in property etc but is this really the state the Motor Trade is in when a success story is publishing that headline Turnover figure followed by their last 2 years Pre Tax Profit figures at £38k and £69k!? Is there a mistake with those profit figures? If that is correct for me it just looks very sad how the whole Motor Trade business model is celebrating huge turnover figures rather than actually making some money at the end of the daily grind and pain most of us have to endure to try and make the business stack up. http://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/marsh-holdings-pushes-turnover-past-30m-2017/153857

Nope, only gave the chap the document reference number off of the front of the V5. How the potential purchaser managed to tax it off of that with no previous owner details I will never know. Not informed the Police, told the potential purchaser that's what he should do. I've got the proper car sat here with all the right documentation which is all I am worried about.

Ladies and Gents I had a chap ring me last week regarding a 2012 Discovery I have in stock at £20995. The chap not unusually in this day and age wanted to know the in's and out's of everything including the exact dates and mileages of the services and also a lot of information from the V5 to carry out his own HPI/AA Check. None of this unusual I thought as despite priding my adverts on being more informative than most I still have to re-answer most peoples questions where people do not read the blurb. I have tried ringing this hot lead on 5 occasions since with the number going straight to voicemail each time. I have a chap ring me today regarding the Discovery asking if I have the car in stock to which I replied yes. He then tells me he was due to collect a car today with the same registration number, same service history etc advertised on eBay. He had already taxed the vehicle with the information the seller had given him and was due to go and hand over £11000 in cash for the bargain HPI Clear, FLRSH 2012 Discovery. Needless to say I will not be giving out V5 details for customers looking to do their own HPI/AA Checks anymore and amazingly the potential purchaser was not interested in coming and paying below market price (according to AT) for my beautiful Discovery that I have in stock.

What method of upload do you use Rory? I put a post on here previously asking for peoples method as by the time I film a high quality video on my phone, then use an App called 'Dubme' to do away with all the bank ground noise and me panting, trying to then upload this to youtube takes an absolute age due to filesize. If I make the video quality lower to then make the file size smaller the Video quality is crap so probably no more beneficial than the 20 quality photo's I've already uploaded.

Thanks Arf! Do you use iMovie app to film the walkaround or just to edit/dub it? I take it you then use a fibre broadband connection to upload it? is it a high quality video you upload? Maybe it's there isn't anything wrong with anything I'm doing just need to upgrade to a Fibre Broadband connection at home to upload it in an evening?

Techie one this for someone.... So I have been taking Video presentations of my cars to add to the adverts as Standard (apparently 20 well taken photos of the car in dry conditions against a uniform background isn't enough anymore). I have been uploading the videos via an App called DUBME and then to youtube from the App. Then using the youtube link within my Dragon2000 DMS. I used to use a medium quality recording format in DUBME to give a sensible size file to upload which didn't take an age however the quality when then viewed on my website was crap really. Using a higher quality format means I'm left with the Video standard I require but something like an hour to upload to youtube. So.... Has anyone found a decent way of taking video's on your phone and then uploading them somewhere to a high quality to generate a web link to paste into your DMS? All of this whilst using an average internet connection and not having to lose several hours of your life each week! Incidentally the reason I use DUBME is so I can then Dub over the video I have recorded just with a silence, no dopey commentary pointing out the car has wheels, wipers and seats, no out of breath panting whilst trying to walk around car holding the camera, no doors slamming or my mate shouting out of unit next door 'how much is that shag?'

It's very sad for any business to fail with the ultimate loss of jobs to members of staff and no doubt plenty of sleepless nights for people directly and indirectly involved. However.... Is the car Supermarket mentality and people trading with the 'monopoly money' funds of stocking loans, Auction funding facilities making the job so very difficult for people trading responsibly with their own funds, looking to see a bigger margin from selling a £15,000/£18,000/£22,000 car than a £5000 car? This in turn being what drives the Auction prices for stock through the roof because people are stood putting their hands up with the theory 'not my money, if I can take £800 out of that £18000 car then happy days because I'm selling 30/40/50/100 cars a month'? Just a thought..... I've found things pretty tough the last 4 months, very much down on the same period from last year in terms of numbers sold and ultimately profit made. However with no overdrafts, no stocking or flooring facilities it means I haven't had to be chasing cash flow etc but I wander how many others are feeling the pinch with some big overheads and loans to service etc. My best wishes to the staff of Caralot and I hope they find alternative employment quickly!

I did this very same exercise at the end of last year. As the sole director of a LTD company my accountant referred me to an independent adviser he regularly uses for his clients. This was handy as the two of them had a relationship so when the Mortgage Broker needed anything they went directly to the accountant. You need someone who can think outside of the box a bit and my advice would be DO NOT GO TO A MAINSTREAM LENDER SUCH AS THE HALIFAX. You will get some snotty nosed box ticker intent on flogging you a load of other stuff as well. I used a gent called Antony Weeks of Tyler Mortgage Management who used a lender that would take 100% of my companies gross profit as a lending multiple which is handy if you have been showing profitable books as it sounds you have. His contact details are Antony.Weeks@tylermm.com or 0207 484 9209. Proper chap who likes his cars as well!

Firstly may I say that as a small independent dealer the level of information provided by Car Dealer Magazine and also it's motor trade contributors I am finding increasingly valuable. I think it's very easy as a small business to get cut off from things that are going on in the outside world and also when the chips are a little down difficult to find some inspiration to kick on and get going and make the relevant changes needed to keep your business abreast with whats going on. Now onto my point/question.... For five and a half years I have been used to a debit card service charge from my merchant provider of around 18 pence per transaction. This is regardless whether the amount is a £500 deposit or a £20,000 balance. This fixed 18 pence amount as of the first of April has changed to a percentage amount of in my case 0.4% of the balance paid. Meaning that if I take £100,000 of Debit Card payments in a month say split into 10 transactions of £10,000 my previous bill of £1.80 has now increased to £400. Surely this can't be right and I'm hoping that others in the industry have also found this and would love to know what course of action they have taken? Thanks in advance for your guidance. Craig