Alternatives to Autotrademail

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Firstly I'm not talking down ATM they are excellent and when we first started our business invaluable

However I'm finding its slowing down a bit these days, very hard to source a car, by the time I have done background with a customer the car is gone !

As for selling a car, I last sold a car on there about 6 months ago!

So what are the other alternatives out there, any recommendations for buying or selling trade cars?

Apart from BCA of course !

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

You could try 'Trade Outs', same idea as ATM but thet were a lot cheaper. saying that I didn't have much success with them but they do seem to have grown a bit since. 

 

As for buying have you tried Dealer-Auction and Sytner Auction websites? Both good ways of sourcing stock, Sytner Auction is free but Dealer Auction costs £99 and £25 buyers fee on every car. 

 

As for selling trade stock I find local traders, ebay'er etc are the best bet, you have to deal with moans and groans from them but they come to you and you get paid there and then without waiting for someone who may or may not show.

[c_cars 56]

Id agree with Gavin, Ive used both Dealer Auction and Sytner and the other one I use regularly is Auction4Cars.com, Motorpoints trade disposal site. No fees, car described properly and a wide variety of stock from bangers to year old stuff.

 

All my part exs go on eBay, 5 or 7 day auctions with no reserve and described as bluntly as possibly so no one is every under any illusion what they are buying and haven't had any issues so far!

[sparky 274]

Another vote here for Dealer Auction, although like any other timed auction it's no good for your blood pressure. As the bidding approaches the end, turn your phone off, lock your doors, make sure your stopwatch is working and  have a stress ball to hand if you miss out!

 

What's the problem with BCA? OK, I know they try and milk us for every penny  but they do have an unrivalled choice of stock, Manheim also.

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm not signed up to dealer auction or sytner yet, that's on my to do list for next week.

A4u are great and I've been on there for a few years, only been stung twice on there both times from the Oldham branch, which I noticed were very lazy with there descriptions, this has changed now though, I'm guessing I wasn't the only trader to complain about that one! Overall great though.

BCA have much of the market cornered but it seems every man and his dog are after the same car which annoyingly can push prices up, private buyers are not even bring put off by high fees, I'm on the higher card so lower fees help of course

ATM I'm losing the love for it, I've had 3 traders come and reject cars from me for frankly silly reasons, one didn't like the colour! And it's pricey

[James Baggott 227]

Great insight guys - thanks for your honesty.

[Chris@Glass 2]

Interesting to hear that the "bidding" sites are being favored in these comments more so than the "trade only classifieds". At Glass's we wanted to add more value to our online valuation platforms, so we introduced a FOC trading platform to Glass's subscribers. Its very much a email out your stock type system to a list of "interested buyers" but we compliment the advert with Glass's Trade valuations and our LIVE Retail value from Radar. This then gives the potential buyer a view of the retail market for their territory. Its early days still, but plenty of regular activity.

 

Speed of sale on these platforms I see as King. Browsing lists of adverts will mostly result in old stock or stock that's already moved on. We wanted to create instant alerts, hence Trade Alerts.

 

Agree with James here, very insightful and powerful to know.

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

I think where site like Dealer Auction etc are winning over ATM is that they (DA & Sytner etc) requires a degree of effort from the seller in the way of loading on pictures, writing about the vehicle etc. Whilst ATM had these people were very lazy about using them and it was mainly written text on a screen, trying to get hold of the sellers to ask any questions could be a painful process to. 

 

I imagine garages who put the effort into making good adverts on DA & Sytner sell more car through it. It seems a picture can tell a 1000 words!!!

[GreenGiant 287]

 At Glass's we wanted to add more value to our online valuation platforms

It's a shame Glass spent so much time and money on the worthless experiment with G2, or whatever you called it.

You not only lost a stack of cash, customers and decent, knowledgable staff, you also lost pretty much any credibility you had in the marketplace.

Unfortunately Chris, we are all getting on just fine without Glass these days and your company can try and add any amount of value to your platforms if you want, we've found other, cheaper, more accurate ways of valuing stock.

The fact is: Glass is broken.

[Chris@Glass 2]

It's a shame Glass spent so much time and money on the worthless experiment with G2, or whatever you called it.

You not only lost a stack of cash, customers and decent, knowledgable staff, you also lost pretty much any credibility you had in the marketplace.

Unfortunately Chris, we are all getting on just fine without Glass these days and your company can try and add any amount of value to your platforms if you want, we've found other, cheaper, more accurate ways of valuing stock.

The fact is: Glass is broken.

 

Happy to discuss this in more detail Mr Green. PM me and we can talk.

 

Back to the forum thread.

 

Gavin - there is lots a great kit available now for video file transfer on mobile devices to upload vehicle appraisals online. The only downside I can see is data usage on a handset. Some guys are uploading 5-6 min long videos

[GreenGiant 287]

Happy to discuss this in more detail Mr Green. PM me and we can talk.

 

Back to the forum thread.

Nothing to discuss. Your company made a huge mistake and now you're paying for it. There was a big fanfare about how marvellous G2 was and how it would change the way we work... Except it wasn't and it didn't. So now you.ve gone back to the old method. But the bird has flown.

 

Oh, and this is the forum thread - you hijacked it with your self-promo attempt and it isn't for you to decide where the discussion goes.

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Back to what Chris was saying, the vids is a great idea, the guys at Rybook trade have some great vids to go with the auction

One point to note though, they are all on tube as that's what they use, and all vids can be accessed by any joe public, surely a private account with another uploader would be better?

[Chris@Glass 2]

Wheeler - I am sure you can make some videos "unsearchable" therefore you need to know the link to play them as such.

 

Chris

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

The website is also viewable to the public, not good IMO

[AlistairJ777 2]

The guys at Rybrook are using CitNOW videos I think - these can be hosted separately to YouTube if you don't want them to be found by a generic consumer search although Rybrook are though I think trying to get 'trade' buyers of these cars from all corners.

 

Video should work well for Trade - if a picture paints a 1000 words then a video must surely paint a million ?

 

I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the use of video for trade buying/selling/appraising.

 

Personally I still love ATM and have bought and sold happily through the service - there's always a few messers in this world, more than there used to be, but hey that's life unfortunately...

[Direct2Dealers 0]

Hi All,

Interesting thread and good to hear that you are all making so much use of the online sourcing sites for trade-to-trade sales.

 

Trying not to make this post a shameless plug but what are your thoughts on sourcing cars direct from the public in a similar way to the online trade-to-trade sites?  As the public want to sell their car there is an incentive for them to put effort in to describing it well and using pictures for some of the more difficult/subjective bits (like damage) could help with accuracy of info.

 

Chris.

[CJ Underhill 34]

I tend to stick the mentioned places

 

Dealer Auction, Sytners, Rybrook and Full Auction.

 

Tho on these sites we do tend to try and buy from the same few centres, as there is alot of trust involved. Building a good relation with the dealer is key. As we all have different views on what a "tidy" car is.

 

For more specific stuff, i use Manheim. Mainly because their giant Bruntingthorpe centre is only down the road. Plus the auction inspections are usually very accurate.

 

 

I never really got on with ATM. I found it very expensive, and alot of traders wanting "bids" or "offers" and then never hearing back to wether or not you've actually got the car. I prefer to be giving a figure, or able to bid upto a figure. That way, it saves alot of peoples time. There also seemed to be alot on ATM asking almost retail prices on stuff.

The main thing that annoyed me, was if i put out a specific "wanted" car, i'd get calls from loads of traders offering me other stuff, or what other cars i'd buy from them.

 

 

As for Trade outs... dont even get me started. Due to their main guys attitude i wouldn't use it now even if it was free, and would not reccomend them at all

[CJ Underhill 34]

Direct to dealer

 

I personally would be weary of buying a car thats been described by the general public.

 

I think we've all had customers that describe their car as "mint" "like new" or "very good" and when they arrive to part ex its a complete shed. Also their version of full service history, is completley different to ours.

 

If a member of the public is trying to sell their vehicle, i would question why. If they are going to the effort of describing the vehicle condition and uploading it for dealers to buy, why they wernt selling it themselves privatly? And also, i'd imagine its because they are unhappy with the trade in value on theirs and hoping for more than book price.

 

Finally, is a member of the public trying to sell their own vehicle really going to declare that it doesnt start first time in the morning, the turbo has gone, the abs light comes on now and then etc?

[Direct2Dealers 0]

Direct to dealer

 

I personally would be weary of buying a car thats been described by the general public.

 

I think we've all had customers that describe their car as "mint" "like new" or "very good" and when they arrive to part ex its a complete shed. Also their version of full service history, is completley different to ours.

 

If a member of the public is trying to sell their vehicle, i would question why. If they are going to the effort of describing the vehicle condition and uploading it for dealers to buy, why they wernt selling it themselves privatly? And also, i'd imagine its because they are unhappy with the trade in value on theirs and hoping for more than book price.

 

Finally, is a member of the public trying to sell their own vehicle really going to declare that it doesnt start first time in the morning, the turbo has gone, the abs light comes on now and then etc?

 

Hi CJ Underhil,

 

All valid points.

 

First to address why a member of the public is selling there car and doesn't want to sell it privately - simple answer is a private sales is hard work and can be risky.  Even just picking the listing price can be difficult, too high and no calls too low and your already on the back foot for negotiations.  Then you have to deal with all the phone calls and viewings which can very time consuming and difficult when working full time and with a family to manage etc.

 

You then need to worry about insurance for test drives, the awkward haggling and checking the money is real.  This is all bread and butter for you but for Joe public this is a lot of hassle and stress, especially if your car is worth a bob or two.

 

Wrt to people not describing the vehicles correctly well no one can ever stop that completely. However as they will be inputting details in to a website it can be made clear that offers are only valid if the details entered are correct (including mechanical questions) and the input options could help collect the information that really matters to dealers. e.g. asking the right questions about history rather than just full/part/none or a text input. If you have any particular requests that would be good to know.

 

Chris.

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Your right there, some customers come in to px as they simply can't be bothered with the hassle of selling privately, just to many scammers etc out there

[umesh 336]

Alistair , you asked if any one used video's to buy / sell - ALL my used cars have a full walk around video :- check them out www.autochange.co.uk see what you think! 

I've definitely sold cars directly form the video ..[ Only been doing then around 5/6 weeks now ] as I type this just taken a deposit on a SEAT because the buyer has seen the video! 

as lots of customers have told me - on the video there is nothing to hide !  Just making it EASY for customers to buy!