RH Trading

Stock 40 cars, from January this year been selling consistently around 32 per month on average sales from AT around 25 per month

That sounds expensive! that will also include putting your stock on the AutoTrader which you'll need to do anyway. I have a Click Dealer site and moved away from the autotrader razor one about 4 years ago. Click Dealer is great, loads of functionality but I still need all my cars on the autotrader. You can pay a fortune for the best website in the world but if no one visits it, its not worth a penny, you might as well stick a postcard in the local newsagents shop window. you're paying for the audience that'll see your cars, Looking right now at August website traffic from my google analysis tool and website tracker I see 91% of the people that came to my website where as an autotrader referral apparently, 7% from google and the rest came direct. looking at the cars sold 85% came as a result of finding my car on the autotrader - that to me isn't an expense, its an investment, as EPV says above, spend money on marketing but measure it and make sure it works. I used to spend around £6000 a month back in the 90's for the midlands autotrader, and about 3 other local newspapers, and only if I asked did I know where a sale came from. now I spend about half of that because being online means I can see exactly what's working and get rid of what isn't, its only expensive if it doesn't work. many people on here get by fine without them but for me I need to be on the biggest and best generator of sales. whatever you choose to decide P118 make sure you measure your return, sales and net profit and make every penny work hard for you. Jobs hard enough without throwing money away Theres another thread on here on findandfundmycar, they charged me £2000 earlier this year to get on their website which returned me zero, in same time I was on the autotrader which cost me £8000 but resulted in nearly 90 sales - which was the most expensive?

Nothing new here, theres dozens of free sites not worth a fart. How will it get better? I paid almost £2000 earlier this year for findandfundmycar and got zero. no emails, phone calls, finance enquiries, walk ins, texts, nothing. Fair play to Motonovo for listening as we all said it should have been free from day 1. No doubt promising dealers sales and response will get more cars on their platform but this makes it worse for dealers if their audience figures remain the same, just means my competition just got bigger whilst the amount of car buyers going to their site dwindle, if it was working I'd gladly have paid for it. Will they be compensating us dealers who subsidised them at the beginning. There's no such thing as a free lunch, anything that's free is in my experience and to use a technical phrase "a bag of wank"

Any pain points or opportunities ahead of the September market? - August buoyant for us, seem to be getting a lot of response, sales YoY up 11% with same stock holding, trade prices due to dealer demand at auction seem to very strong would be biggest pain point and have no option but price stock accordingly, Is stock supply holding relative to demand? don't quite know what this means? We buy in line with demand so our cars don't tend to stick around too long. our days to turn is consistently around 34 days. the availability of the more in demand cars at auction seem ok but as mentioned above everyone's chasing the same cars so pushing up prices Will August finish ahead or behind 2017? ahead, interest in diesels has also gone up, notice my advert views of the diesel stock up in past 4-6 weeks, customer's haven't a clue or don't care about WLPT I find. Footfall strong and Advert views on AT up, so fingers crossed for a good Q3 How would you describe the overall market? think it depends on how successful new car sales are and how well franchised dealers do, we tend to boom 4-6 weeks after new registration, pick up a lot of decent part ex but think the manufacturers discounts will start to end and cheap PCP deals will start to peter out.September started well (last weekend) still as strong as August thankfully you still in the IMDA Phil?

short term rentals on units are really cheap, ever consider taking the plunge? you don't need a fancy gin palace or main road forecourt, with 12 cars and the issues you have with storage and potential neighbour problems sounds like you're ready for that next step.

I'd think long and hard before committing to a turntable. My accountant had a nosey around last year as was considering one myself. There are different sizes and some of the cheapest cant hold estates or bigger than an average medium sized saloon. For what they are I'm not convinced they'd actually help sell any more cars. You cant measure the impact and making sure you have loads of great photos (inside and out) and a decent walk round video is more important, They take up quite a bit of space as well and you cant use that valuable floor area for anything else. I've got a photo bay with great lighting, decent floor and backdrop but decided against a turntable based on cost and measurable return. Once its installed the depreciation as an asset is massive, its basically worthless, you cant really sell it and once its in, its in, difficult to relocate it without spending even more money. You're right to do homework, shop around if you are seriously looking and consider the size you need and relocation costs if you're not happy once its down

Good for us so far, 22 away this month from 36 advertised, deposits taken this morning on another 2. hope to end month around 30, which would be 4 more than Aug 2017 with same amount of stock. Just been steady for us all month and service has been fully booked, people looking to get their car done before holidays end I reckon

I use the free application, track everything and looking back since 01/04/18, 5 of the conversations that initially started with chat assist out of hours have converted to sales out of 41 chats received in total up to 15/08/18. its easy to answer from your mobile and takes 10 seconds during the day and I'd prefer to answer them myself than the out of hours service to be honest so not a big deal for us.

Ouch, and I'm sure the build quality will get so much better in future now that Disco's are being built in Slovakia instead of here in the Midlands

I think we must be related, same here along with a massive AA road atlas in the boot (just in case) even though he's got sat nav. never goes further than 10 miles per trip and wont go on the motorways as "its full of bloody idiots these days"

Good luck @Ccstew echo all the above, also important you give a great experience when people turn up which matches what they've seen online. nothing worse than a great, slick looking, professional website only for me to find a filthy shithole portakabin with faded bunting when I turn up. its a trust thing. Sometimes I trust a home trade more when buying a car than a dealer with a bombsite pitch, if you're a home trader you cant run away and hide or shut up shop and do a runner quite as easily

and no doubt this man (or woman, I'm not sexist) will go away and leave a bad review somewhere

Father in law has a motability car and think he must be the exception to the rule, never bought a new car in his working life, now 86 he's got his first motab car after pestering him for ages about what he's entitled to, has a gorgeous 17 plate Civic and must say his is like new. Washes it religiously, always vacuuming it, gets it serviced regularly, (think it gives him something to do) he said this weekend " well its not my car really is it" - think it must be a generational thing. If I see that going through the hall I'm definitely having it

Does anyone get anything from Findandfundmycar? Close brothers rep told me Motornovo where pumping some more money into it

Yep depends on the car, I remember we had an Alfa 156 GTA (I know, I know) for ages in stock a few years back until someone told me to change the silver alloys to white, thought it odd at the time but it sold very quickly once they were swapped. generally I stick to factory

Thanks SC for starting a very positive post, generally these are all doom and gloom and we talk ourselves into a bloody depression Doing OK here, 6 so far for June, try and aim for 1 per day at least. Sold 8 more last month than May 2017 with same stock level (35) and thankfully margin up slightly on last year so its not at the cost of ppu, keep wondering when it'll dry up but surprisingly busy for this time of year. June and July generally very quiet but seems to have been a steady 12-15 sales per week since February. I've probably jinxed it saying that, World cup/Olympics also seems to keep people away, half of me prays for an early exit when England are playing in World cup or Euro's. don't know what the reason is, more people coming out of PCP's, Brexit fears not as bad as people suspected? I'm no expert but who cares as long as people keep buying I'm happy

Hi Pete - I'd agree with Grant, At £4500 its a grand cheaper than anybody else's you say - can I ask why its so cheap? people will think there's something wrong perhaps. my experience is that people like to go in the middle, not the dearest as obviously they think its not good value, not the cheapest as it cheap for a reason, but somewhere between the two. I'm never the cheapest around here but seem to do OK, May was good for us and there's no way that Mazda should stick, had a few in past 12 months and always seem to do well. can you post a link to your advert mate? The guys on here give great feedback on presentation and photos etc. I pick up a lot of tips from the forum dealers. hope it picks up soon Pete Rob

yeah sorry, iControl, its very marmite, but it works for me as a guide, took me a while to get used to it, the retail check is very good, use religiously on every car. colleague of mine in a main dealer had it and cancelled it as it didn't work for him, saves me a hell of a lot of time and reduced overage enormously. didn't really look at old stock but realised I had about half my cars sat on my forecourt for 150 + days, managed to whittle it down gradually and now none over 60 which helps bottom line. just keeps me alert and saves time for me

Hi Phil USED SALES - Just closed the month now and business is very brisk thankfully, sales volumes and profit up YoY, values holding strong, I use the control pricing tool and actually increased the price of 10 of the sold cars last month that were going into 60 days. They went within 72 hrs of repricing, for a total additional gross profit of £2280 across the 10. first time Ive known to have to reprice so many cars upwards and that's helped massively with maintaining margins. DEMAND - Showroom visits the same in terms of footfall but it just seems people were more ready to buy last month. Last bank holiday weekend very busy - I almost closed as I thought we'd never see anyone whilst the weather was so good. that's on the back of an OK April and good March. expecting it to start to tail off now as we get into the holiday season. June and July for us have typically been our slowest periods historically but the workshop is always busy thankfully and this keeps us ticking over when the sales side goes dead. SUPPLY - Started to buy more private stock now rather than go to physical auction as its got beyond a joke and needs sorting out. Dealer auction is like the wild west and very wary from buying from there as I've been stung a couple of times, exaggerated condition reports, non existant appraisals, dealers who aren't really dealers etc. and dealer auction know this full well and turn a blind out - please sort out Phil Bought 5 great, tidy low mileage, private cars end of April and they all went for very high margins, with probably less prep than I'd have needed to do if I'd bought from auctions, less headache and ZERO auction fees - Really think physical auctions need a massive overhaul, they're prehistoric, a closed shop and not good for my health at all. Manheim own wewantanycar don't they? that doesn't help Phil - sourcing stock is hard enough without you snapping up cars along with BCA and WBAC - anything you can do much appreciated - Motors is garbage so don't try and flog that dead horse - put it out of its misery Phil as head of extranal affiars can you tell us your plans to help us with sourcing? that's my biggest issue with Manheim. Surecheck was OK in the beginning but stopped using it due to poor coverage - I take it as you started the IMDA that dealers can get discounts across Manheim then? hope this helps Rob

Welcome Nick

Very busy end to May. 9 over the weekend from 40 stock so not bad, and all with a decent margin

It looked good but unfortunately couldn't get up to it - what did you think of it Umesh?

ClickDealer invoices for me, prior to this I used my own excel system

Ahh - well spotted, I can tell you have a fine eye for detail sir, thanks very much. Will do

Can someone tell me where I'm going wrong please? had this car for ages with zero calls, have tried everything, prepped to my usual standard https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201805136467279?associated-ids=201805136467234%252C201805136466866%252C201805136467279%252C201805136467028%252C201805136467157&exclude-writeoff-categories=on&seller-type=trade&advertising-location=at_cars&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New&radius=1500&postcode=m154fn&price-to=3500&page=2&search-target=usedcars&original-id=201805136466966&originalAdvertBodyType=Hatchback&originalAdvertMake=HONDA&originalAdvertModel=CIVIC&originalAdvertPrice=195