Donedeal vs Carzone vs Adverts

golfman

So I put my car up for sale on all 3 platforms last night as I want it gone asap. I'm interested to see what other people's feedback is as it hasn't been as good a process as I imagined. I made the decision to make my car the cheapest in the country in that age bracket to help it move quickly. For the record its a 141 Hyundai ix35 1.7 diesel with 77k kms on it.

Donedeal: I decided to go for the full monty her and paid for the spotlight listing - €20
Carzone: I also went for the full monty here and paid €15 for their premium service
Adverts: Why not go the whole hog here as well and paid the €7 for the top package.

Experience so far:
Carzone: As I paid for Premium listing I expected it to be on the 1st page at least. Wrong - there are 9 pages of 141 Hyundai IX35s and my car was the 2nd last out of all of them. I called Carzone to find out why. Carzone defaults its sort by Description A-Z but if you have searched for a specific make and model it then goes by price high-low. Great! I also noticed they have taken away the analytics element so I can't see how many people have viewed my advert? Is this because Donedeal beat them on a like for like basis for page views? I won't know as I have no way of comparing.

Adverts: I nearly didn't bother putting it up on adverts as I find you get a bunch of timewasters. E.g. "I'll swap you a fish tank and a dyson vacuum cleaner with money your way!" However, as I am extremely motivated to sell quickly I thought the more sites I am on the better chance I have. Adverts asks you to put in the reg and it auto-populates all the fields for you (same as the others). However I just noticed my car was listed under "Hyundai other". When I try to edit the make and model the field is locked. I've had to contact them to change it but on looking it seems there's 19 other poor unfortunates that haven't spotted it and are wondering why they are getting no calls. Now it has been corrected it is showing top of the pile which is good. They also show you how many times it has been viewed.

Donedeal: So far so good. It has good analytics. It tells you how many people have viewed and how many people have saved the ad. Spotlight has made it top of the pile and this is the only site so far that I have had no gripe with.

The truth will be in the levels of response I get from each channel so I'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, what's your experience of selling on the 3 platforms? Which have you had the most success with?

737max

€42 in classifieds while in other countries you have free ad sites like gumtree or kleinanzeigen.ebay.de which everyone uses as their first location to find stuff.
gumtree should have got traction in Ireland but somehow didn't.

737max

I don't see gumtree or kleinanzeigen.ebay.de going out of business.
all Gumtree would need in Ireland is people just putting up their adverts which they pay to place on other sites.
@OP; why not place advert on Gumtree as it is free and a small "for sale" sign in window of car if the objective is to see what methods lead to genuine enquiries.

Atlantic Dawn

And what about your ad itself did you take numerous photos covering the car and give a good description?

golfman

737max wrote: »

@OP; why not place advert on Gumtree as it is free and a small "for sale" sign in window of car if the objective is to see what methods lead to genuine enquiries.

I'll try Gumtree - no harm at all. The sign in the car, I've always thought they were odd, but once again no harm in trying. It would mean parking it in a public place which I'm kind of against as I've had a car keyed before.

golfman

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

And what about your ad itself did you take numerous photos covering the car and give a good description?

Yep, plenty of pictures and plenty of info. I'm sure there's nothing against putting up a link http://www.adverts.ie/car/hyundai/ix35/2014-hyundai-ix35-1-7-diesel-3-yr-warranty/11210746

bazz26

Your biggest problem will be convincing someone to buy privately in that price range. Most people will want the peace of mind of buying from a dealer when spending that sort of cash. They may also be swayed by cheaper PCP finance deals on a brand new car also.

golfman

bazz26 wrote: »

Your biggest problem will be convincing someone to buy privately in that price range. Most people will want the peace of mind of buying from a dealer when spending that sort of cash. They may also be swayed by cheaper PCP finance deals on a brand new car also.

That's a mindset I don't really understand. You buy this car which still has 3 yrs manufacturers warranty from me or the garage, your "peace of mind" should technically be exactly the same. But people will generally take more peace of mind from the garage even though all things are equal.

bmwguy

You might be ok selling privately due to balance of manufacturers warranty still being on it. Maybe do a bit of research into it to let the potential buyer know who and how to contact in the event of making a warranty claim. But it's still an expensive private sale. Best of luck

Atlantic Dawn

Very well done on the ad, as was said your biggest enemy is the amount with it being a private sale. If you have no finance left of the car perhaps put this in the ad, someone might do a car history check and if they saw finance might put them off.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

How is that an expensive private sale? Loads of cars more expensive for private sale on all three sale sites.

People like garages because they take trade-ins.

If the price is right somebody will buy it. If you in a hurry you need to drop the price until somebody bites. Also the ad is a bit naff IMHO

"This really is a stunning car in the grey with the grey alloy wheels. The car is in great condition inside and out and would not look out of place on a forecourt. With cheap road tax of 280 euro and peace of mind with 3 years unlimited mileage manufacturers warranty remaining along with 2 years on the NCT you will struggle to find a better car than this one".

Let the buyer decide if the car is stunning, who cares how it would look on a forecourt, Why mention that the car is old enough to need an NCT- somebody buying a 141 doesnt need that pointed out? You would not struggle to find a better car, maybe its a great example of that car but......

Give the details...dont try be a sales man, if people want to be sold they would go to a a garage.

golfman

Brecken Teeny Brush wrote: »

How is that an expensive private sale? Loads of cars more expensive for private sale on all three sale sites.

People like garages because they take trade-ins.

If the price is right somebody will buy it. If you in a hurry you need to drop the price until somebody bites. Also the ad is a bit naff IMHO

"This really is a stunning car in the grey with the grey alloy wheels. The car is in great condition inside and out and would not look out of place on a forecourt. With cheap road tax of 280 euro and peace of mind with 3 years unlimited mileage manufacturers warranty remaining along with 2 years on the NCT you will struggle to find a better car than this one".

Let the buyer decide if the car is stunning, who cares how it would look on a forecourt, Why mention that the car is old enough to need an NCT- somebody buying a 141 doesnt need that pointed out? You would not struggle to find a better car, maybe its a great example of that car but......

Give the details...dont try be a sales man, if people want to be sold they would go to a a garage.

Thanks for the feedback! On the point of trying to "sell" it I'm on the fence with that. I think you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the past I've advertised cars with no sales pitch and had feedback saying I haven't tried to sell it. I've tried to pick my target audience which will no doubt be female and tailor it to them. IMO that target market would want to know they have peace of mind with a manufacturers warranty and they don't need to worry about the dreaded NCT for another 2 years. IMO that target market wants a bit of sales pitch telling them how nice the car is...... as I say that in my humble opinion of course.

bazz26

golfman wrote: »

That's a mindset I don't really understand. You buy this car which still has 3 yrs manufacturers warranty from me or the garage, your "peace of mind" should technically be exactly the same. But people will generally take more peace of mind from the garage even though all things are equal.

A manufacturer's warranty is all good and well if something prematurely fails or is defective. However what happens if a buyer finds out afterwards that a car is clocked or has had poorly repaired from a previous accident? The manufacturer won't cover that but the buyer may have some sort of protection if bought through a dealer.