Quite Month!!

[Ben 0]

Hello everyone!

hope your all well.

I have been selling cars for 2 years now, I have 10 garages I rent from the local Councel and store the cars in there.

i have found the last 6-8 weeks very quite, I don't want to keep dropping the price of my cars, as there cheap already and I thing it can be off putting when a car looks to cheap.

is the market just very quite right now ?

or, do I need to offer fianance ? My cars range from £4,000 - £6,000 I don t know weather I'm going to do that many more deals, I find the thing very inconsistent and I'm worried about investing anymore time and energy into selling cars.

having my 2nd child has made me think weather there is money to be made anymore? 

Or maybe you need 60-70 cars to make the job worth while.

the other question I had was weather or not people pay £1,000 more from a dealer or do you just sit on cars for weeks on end?

someone told me to sell cheap and fast regardless of condition.

the dealers I have seen around for years, sell spotless cars for top money.

frustrating game car sales, but can be really enjoyable when things are going well, which is not a lot of the time for me right now! 

Thanks for any advise.

Ben

[umesh 336]

welcome to the motortrade ! 20 Years in business ..Ups & Downs ! I'm sure everyone will be commenting soon ..  ! 

[grant8064 219]

It has been beyond dead for us this month, worst month trading ever in fact.

However, August, which is usually terrible, was our best ever month. 

Work that one out because I have given up trying to.

[justina3 518]

10 garages ? 

[Mojo121 229]

7 this week. Flying. But 1 last week. Ups and downs as Umesh said

[NoMargin 11]

21 minutes ago, justina3 said:

10 garages ? 

That's what I was thinking........ But I'm sure he means 10 lock up garages = 1 car per garage.. Must be dealing small hatchbacks. 

[metcars 397]

Pedant alert!

Are we quite or quiet?

[Tom 164]

started off well this month and died a death since. It's funny how it effects nearly everyone at the same time like someone one out there has said don't buy any cars. 

[Rory RSC 596]

Can I go home yet?

 

 

[metcars 397]

3 minutes ago, Rory RSC said:

Can I go home yet?

 

 

Not until you've done your 100 lines.

"I must lower my standards and buy crap, as I can't sell empty spaces"
"I must lower my standards and buy crap, as I can't sell empty spaces"
..............

[XFS 70]

I have my best stock ever, every one a winner and better and cheaper than any others available within 100 miles. The only car I have had a serious enquiry about this month was my most expensive and the customer arrived as appointed, took a quick look, declined a test drive, shook my hand, completed the paperwork and money in 20 mins and was driving away in a 22k car.

The rest I,ve barely had a phone call about in the last 3 weeks.

[Tom 164]

Has Brexit started to turn the knife? 

[justina3 518]

Or people starting to worry about how they going to afford xmas ? thank god i dont rely only on the income from cars

[grant8064 219]

Or people walking into main dealers and getting talked into PCP now scrappage is around

[It's me 615]

i would have thought selling from lockup garages you would be dealing round the 2g mark and undercutting local pitches but offering as mint motors?

surprised people would buy higher up the spectrum so well done,maybe that bubble has now bust and you need to reappraise your business plan?

remember all businesses have their day

[Ben 0]

20 hours ago, Mojo121 said:

7 this week. Flying. But 1 last week. Ups and downs as Umesh said

Hi Mojo,

well done.

do you mind me asking what sort of price range the cars where and weather they where bought on finance or PCP contracts? Did you sell meny of those cars cash so to speak?

most people finance these days no? Maybe that's why I only sell 1-2 on average a month from a float of ten cars ?

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Tom said:

Has Brexit started to turn the knife? 

Hi Tom

hope your well.

i think this has a strong bearing on why the market is very quite.

new car sales is a key indecator of consumer speanding and that's very weak currently with new car dealers offering all sorts of incentives.

second hand car sales will have a knock on effect. 

People are not spending and have adopted the wait and see approach.

the same can said for the housing market, I think they both go hand in hand ( to a certain degree )

lets hope Everyone getting paid end of September and the schools well and truely being back may get things going.

best wish 

Ben

Edited September 24, 2017 by Ben

[BHM 994]

Three weeks ago I was whining that I'd sold nowt in nearly a fortnight then 3, 3 & this week 5.

It is dead & the five I've sold this week have, oddly & gratefully enough, been 'sticky' scruffy old shitters that I thought nobody wanted, but they were cheap & five cheapies sold has made a very nice wage.

I cannot weigh up this game though. 5 cars I've had stuck around for a while then in one week the only cars I sell are the errr...cars nobody wants. Very odd.

[Ben 0]

20 hours ago, grant8064 said:

It has been beyond dead for us this month, worst month trading ever in fact.

However, August, which is usually terrible, was our best ever month. 

Work that one out because I have given up trying to.

Hey Grant,

thanks for your feedback.

may I ask what price range you sell in, and weather or not those cars sold in Aug weather financed purchases ?

im really concidering the FCA route to help me get deals done.

i don't even have a website, that's not helping me sell cars.

i see people have viewing my ad on autotrader, but that's not translating into calls, maybe me not having a traceable website is putting buyers off. I need to sort that out because I have so many great photos of wonderful cars I have sold.

a reviews page might help me to, I like to do things the right way.

[GreenGiant 287]

Elephant in the room......

Ben.

For your own sake, I hope you get somebody else to write your ads for you, buddy, as I just choked on my cornflakes reading your posts. Others might tell you that grammar and spelling aren't important, but I can assure you they definitely are. Many, many people (me included) make judgements about businesses and individuals based upon their ability to communicate professionally. And, therefore, make further decisions about whether they want to do business with (or employ) them based upon those judgements.

I'm sure you're a lovely fellow, but, based upon what I read, would I buy a car from you?

Sadly, no. And I may not be alone.

#JustSaying

[BHM 994]

9 minutes ago, GreenGiant said:

Elephant in the room......

Ben.

For your own sake, I hope you get somebody else to write your ads for you, buddy, as I just choked on my cornflakes reading your posts. Others might tell you that grammar and spelling aren't important, but I can assure you they definitely are. Many, many people (me included) make judgements about businesses and individuals based upon their ability to communicate professionally. And, therefore, make further decisions about whether they want to do business with (or employ) them based upon those judgements.

I'm sure you're a lovely fellow, but, based upon what I read, would I buy a car from you?

Sadly, no. And I may not be alone.

#JustSaying

+1.

A poorly written advert would be off-putting to me. Conversely, when I receive emails in abysmal "text speak" I just hit the delete key.

[Ben 0]

22 hours ago, justina3 said:

10 garages ? 

10 lock up garages, no forecourt.

24 minutes ago, BHM said:

+1.

A poorly written advert would be off-putting to me. Conversely, when I receive emails in abysmal "text speak" I just hit the delete key.

Over the top, to say the least.

sorry that I have impacted your breakfast in this way!

no, I don't write my ad's in this way.

I find your response quite passive aggressive.

hopfully your feeling better after your post, you sound like the sort of person that's generally quite negative and critical of other people?

everything ok ? 

 

[Rory RSC 596]

I sell around 40-50 cars a month. This month probably being hitting 35. Stock sourcing and a bit of time off has slowed us down a touch,but given a chance to catch up on other areas.

The majority we sell are not on finance. We do some finance deals and it is a useful tool and makes us more money. I would not get to fixated on that being the reason you are not selling.I used to think like that but you will be surprised how many people buy cars of all values without needing finance.

 

Videos help sell cars.

Good pics help sell cars.

Being polite and professional with a good standard of communicating is really important whether that is on the phone, on your video, in your written adverts, on your social media etc.

Good reviews are your word of mouth recommendations. I wished I had started getting them in earlier. Huge boost for buying confidence.

A good website will look more professional and should really shout about your business. Use it to make you look bigger, better and slicker than you are. It is your shop window.

Good luck and if you need anything drop me a pm.

 

[andymc1973 199]

1 hour ago, Ben said:

10 lock up garages, no forecourt.

Over the top, to say the least.

sorry that I have impacted your breakfast in this way!

no, I don't write my ad's in this way.

I find your response quite passive aggressive.

hopfully your feeling better after your post, you sound like the sort of person that's generally quite negative and critical of other people?

everything ok ? 

Ben, you asked for advice, the fact you didn't like it is your look out, I agree with him, if you can''t spell then you shouldn't write your adverts, it's not fair to pop your head above the pulpit then moan if it's not to your liking, I'd personally buy cheaper cars if you're selling viaa  lock up, also offering finance with no actual premises is hardly likely to work, just my two'pennorth

 

 

[BHM 994]

You need thick skin in this game.

There's plenty whinging on here about my attitude but they are other people's views to which they are entitled, I may strongly disagree with them but I'm not offended & it washes over me. 

The moral of this tale is if there is the slightest chance you won't like the answer then don't ask the question in the first place.

[D&M 66]

Hi Ben,

We've got a similar set up to you - we do our trading from our home but rent some storage land close to home to keep and prep the cars we have.

When we started, we were buying in cars that we could retail at less than £3k

We tend to keep 4-6 cars in stock at any one time - August was quite good for us - we sold 6 so we were chuffed with that. So far we've sold 3 this month.

We've only been trading since March, and at first we were pricing our cars the cheapest within 40ish miles from us. We were very busy, sometimes selling 12-15 cars a month but only earning little from them.

Since June we started to buy slightly higher value cars and sell then for the price that we wanted too. Now, we do have a lower turnover than before but are making the same sort of profit on 4-6 cars a month that we were making on 12 cars a month!

At the moment we are finding it hard to get good stock in!

Selling fast and cheap made us feel really good, so busy all the time - but looking at the books we were just busy fools!

Our phone hasn't been ringing off the hook for the past couple of months, but when it does ring it is worth putting the graft in! Since starting up we have very rarely had a view that hasn't bought the car!

Hope it picks up for you soon!