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Would you let dealers bid on your car instead of taking one trade-in offer?

sandwalk12

Hey all,

Long time reader here but wanted to make a quick post as I’m curious what people here think.

Any time I've gone to sell a car, it always feels like the same story. You either throw it up privately and deal with messages and viewings, or you go to a dealer and get one trade-in price and that’s basically it.

I've been working on something on the side where instead of getting one offer, you can put your car up and let dealers bid on it over a few days. Idea being they compete a bit rather than you trying to squeeze more out of one place. Small fee to list it but refunded if nothing comes in.

I guess I am just trying to see if people think it's something they'd actually use? It's built on top of CarSpot which is a car marketplace I've been working on for over a year now so we have a good base of dealerships to alert, etc.

Just looking for opinions before putting more time into it.

Cheers, thanks for your time.

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goochy

Is this a bit like Autobuy run by Mooneys hyundai ?

sandwalk12

Similar idea in that you're getting dealer offers, but the main difference is instead of one dealer giving a price, it’s lots of dealers bidding against each other over a few days. Kind of more like CarWow or Motorway in the UK.

The hope is you get a bit more competition rather than just accepting a single trade-in figure, I think ones like Autobuy target people who are trying to get rid of a car fast without shopping around, rather than people who just don't want to deal with private sale and also don't want to ring every dealer under the sun for offers.

goochy

Hear great things about motorway . Size of market/ country here could either be good or bad in this situation as in dealers won't be buying from say 500 miles away at times or bad in that a smaller market / country means it's easier to just look up the classifieds as not as many cars on market as in UK

_Kaiser_

Sounds good to be fair. I know myself that I wouldn't have the patience for selling privately - but one factor to consider of course is that many people going to dealers are doing so to trade in against a particular car the dealer has rather than a straight sale.

By selling to a dealer directly are you not just going to get low-balled but without a replacement car at the end of it?

littlevillage

There's some guy on the Motors forum here trying to get a DoneDeal rival website off the ground... any connection to you @sandwalk12 ?

sandwalk12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124437971#Comment_124437971

Yeah that’s exactly what I was thinking as well. The UK ones seem to work well because of the scale, loads of dealers and cars moving around.

Here it could go either way like you said, smaller market might mean less competition, but at the same time dealers are all looking at the same stock anyway so might still bid if something suits them.

I suppose the big question is whether there’s enough demand on both sides to make it work consistently. But dealers are used to bidding on TradeBid and stuff fairly frequently so I guess it's just another buying stream - if they spot a car they like they pop a bid down.

sandwalk12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124438017#Comment_124438017

Yeah that’s a fair point. A lot of people are probably trading in against something specific so the deal as a whole matters more than just the trade-in number.

I think it would be more for people who aren’t tied to a particular car and just want to sell first and see what kind of offers they can get without going around a load of dealers. At least gives you a rough idea of what your car is actually worth and helps with budgeting the cost-of-change side of things. Offers would be non binding in a sense so you could check the stock of some dealers who placed an offer and then go in with some kind of idea of price. I could also imagine it being handy if someone is just looking to get rid of a car and not trying to deal with a long sale process - but still having some competition in there.

sandwalk12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124438084#Comment_124438084

Not me, no!

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124438181#Comment_124438181

Could you as a seller maybe state whether you're looking for a straight sale, or maybe specify the car you'd be looking to trade in against (make/model/year/mileage/transmission/fuel type)

Then dealers with something appropriate could give their trade in offers?

I'm not sure a straight sale would work for either side though. Dealers will offer less than private selling, and would they want a car without opportunity to trade one against it/finance deals etc? Unless you have something special/rare or they already have a customer in mind for your car, would there be much interest in that aspect of it?

sandwalk12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124438261#Comment_124438261

Great idea, even just have some kind of inclination for dealers bidding on what type of car the customer wants. Might be a more efficient way of doing it. If someone popped down Audi A6 and got an email with a cost of change for a few Audi A6's that different dealers had.. very interesting angle. Appreciate that feedback. I’ve been testing this idea a bit to see if there’s actually enough demand on both sides to make it work consistently, especially in a smaller market like here. Early signs are good, and it's a proven thing in the UK, but need to see if the percentage of the market is enough here to make it worthwhile. Thanks again for the feedback!

zg3409

I think this already exists and is similar

https://trade-bid.ie/login

A dealer gets in a car as trade in they don't want. They then list it here and other dealers make offers on it. I believe if you trade any car into Tesla they list it there and then you get lowball offers from multiple non Tesla one man dealers. Tesla gets back to you and tells you the highest offer (minus a mark up for themselves) and then you trade in car to Tesla and they pass it on.

While this service is not available to private individuals, it kind of mirrors your needs, and already works.

One of the downsides of your suggestion is it removes the handiness of getting your new car and getting rid of your old car on the same day. If you don't hand it over on sane day you may have issues parking extra car, issues insuring /taxing car when insurance moved over to new car. You would nearly want to arrange a tow truck to meet you at the new car garage or at your home the same day. The higher offer needs to be met with similar convenience.

Also if you trade a car into a dealer they sometimes overpay for trade in, instead of a discount on the new car, a cash sale would result in possibly the total cost being higher as in you may get a lower offer from a faraway dealer trade because they are not making a sale at the same time.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124440358#Comment_124440358

I think what OP is suggesting is a system where you can upload the car yourself and take bids from different dealers. Whereas Trade Bid can only be used if you are trading your car into a dealer who doesn't want your car. Also, just because someone bids X amount on Trade Bid doesn't mean you will get that amount. It's likely the dealer will want a cut and offer you less.

sandwalk12

Good points all around. Firstly, I'm aware of TradeBid and that definitely works for dealers; but it's all done behind closed doors. With this, there's actual visibility and competition for the car which may promote higher offerings especially if a dealer has a customer for that certain car that's on bid.

Definitely get the downside of same-day swaps. As I said above it could be something I built in where it's like I want X I have Y but I didn't want to complicate it too much from the get-go by giving people too many options. I think there's 2 categories of customer; people who are getting rid of their car but don't want to deal with private (or just want a quick sale) - and people who aren't sure of what car they want to trade up to yet but want a rough idea of their cars trade value. There may also be a potential upside of cashing out a car yourself and then using cash (or finance) on a new car.

Theoretically there's already a better user offering from this idea as you mention the mark-up the dealer takes for themself - off of the already-provided price from another dealer with their margin factored in. I guess the hard part is predicting if the market is niche enough of people who aren't immediately sure of their next car, or want to just get rid. That's my main reason for just putting it up and seeing how people feel about it :)

goochy

Having a grading system and only accepting good photos - honest descriptions would be important. As said Motorway seems to do well from this . For instance requesting plp to take pictures of dents / scratches etc being part of process. It's great when u see a car ad that lists pros and cons of car

ax530

I can see people using this even when they don't have full intentions of trading/selling.

However I'm not convinced why the garages would bother with it. Seems like a lot of admin they might offer something one day but by time the seller thinks about it few weeks later they no longer want to car.

Also dealers have details of those who have cars from them so if there is interested for a 231 XYZ car they can ring someone they know has one to see if they thinking of trading.

Good luck with it hope comments here are helpful to you succeeding

goochy

Sourcing stock for dealers is a big job and it's not as easy as plp assume . Motorway has proven successful because of this - remember one of the reasons you don't see many late model/ high value used cars privately is that most plp trade in as they don't want to be dealing with plp on DD etc

For those not familiar with Motorway its basically like selling ur car at Merlin auctions from your home

Jim_Hodge

I can see sellers using this out of curiosity or to get a price guide but I can't see main dealers getting in to it.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124442303#Comment_124442303

I'm sure Motorway is profitable but it's a bad experience for everyone involved. Dealers make artificially high offers online and then offer much less in person after seeing the car. So the genuine dealers get outbid and the sellers get messed around. And the fees are extremely high

goochy

Yes that's one way it doesn't work as well as auctions. But if you advertise honestly you won't give the dealer an excuse to low ball

sandwalk12

Thanks for all the feedback and discussions, this is all super useful.

I think the main way to make it as easy for dealers as possible is just keeping it as frictionless as possible - no real admin, just click a link, look at the car and put in a number. From what I've seen so far, if it's that simple some dealers will at least throw in a price if the car suits them, which is encouraging.

It's definitely an experiment for the Irish market though. The convenience factor seems to work well for Motorway and there's probably a curiosity element too of just wanting to know what your car is actually worth. The low-balling after initial offers is a fair concern as well. I'd imagine the only real way around that is making sellers give proper photos/descriptions upfront and maybe having some kind of feedback/rating system over time for dealers.

goochy

You would want to have experience of the motor trade, not just IT experience

sandwalk12

Absolutely. I've teamed up with a car dealership to build this out so we have both sides of the coin.

reactadabtc

DoneDeal offer this as an option when placing an ad?

MojoMaker

Yes they do, and it's a pretty good service actually.

Think the OP's idea is already being done well - and at no cost to the interested seller.

sandwalk12

Yeah the difference is though you need to be listing it on DoneDeal in the first place which costs €55-85 for that privilege depending on the car. If there was a service that was a fixed, low-cost just to get bids off dealerships directly - with a refund in place if no bids were received - I could still see some people preferring that over going through a full private listing process with calls/messages/viewings etc.

I think there’s probably room for both approaches depending on the type of seller. Some people want maximum money and are happy to wait it out privately, others just want a realistic trade value quickly without the hassle.

MojoMaker

Actually no. You can just plugin a valuation request using the "How much is my car worth?" button, add a few photos and a note or two and have dealers make contact with you without having to formally list an ad or pay anything - it's a free service.

Used it earlier this year to good effect and had two dealers come back with surprisingly good offers - had not listed the car at all (hate using Donedeal).

sandwalk12

Interesting, thanks for the insight. I didn't realise they'd expanded it beyond just trade-in prompts on listings.

Will definitely take a closer look at how they're doing it. I still think there may be room for something a bit more focused around dealer bidding specifically rather than it being part of a broader classifieds flow, but it's useful to know there's clearly demand there already.

GavPJ

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124449729#Comment_124449729

They do and I've used it a few times when people have given me cars to sell for them.

Works well.

artanevilla

Would this be for premium cars only by chance?

Jim_Hodge

Just personally, but as someone who trades in for a new car every 3 years I'd have no interest in this at all. I like dealing with the sellers and getting the specs and extras I can negotiate in person. I also have a strong preference for main dealers whose service and backup support I know from experience I can rely on.