Any Miracle Workers/Car Traders here?
Discussion
Someone I used to work with in the car sales industry left to go and buy/sell cars from auction. Last I heard he was doing much better for himself.
Anyone on here do it full time or just for a bit of pocket money?
Other than buying ex fleet cars from auction, I can't imagine there being a constant source of profitable cars, apart from the odd gumtree speciale.
Anyone on here do it full time or just for a bit of pocket money?
Other than buying ex fleet cars from auction, I can't imagine there being a constant source of profitable cars, apart from the odd gumtree speciale.
I did it for two years and it was difficult then (6 years ago), even more difficult now. Problem is simple - everyone's at it and the margins are really low. Add the fact that you need to stand buy what you sell for at least three months most smaller guys can't cope with it.
The only possible way now, as I see it, is to set up properly, get a decent little car lot, do a deal with a trader or underwriter to take his stock, get all the insurances, finance providers, trade plates and warranties sorted and don't try to do it from home or part time. In reality it's all or nothing.
The only possible way now, as I see it, is to set up properly, get a decent little car lot, do a deal with a trader or underwriter to take his stock, get all the insurances, finance providers, trade plates and warranties sorted and don't try to do it from home or part time. In reality it's all or nothing.
Did it ten years ago whilst finishing up at Uni. Was a good gig, I always went for low outlay with fast turnover. Buy a 1.2 Punto in faded violet on Friday night, pick it up Saturday, wash it, t-cut it back to blue, tyre and trim shine the s
t out it and straight on eBay with a 50p start.
That was before everyone started appearing at auctions. All of a sudden every doting father buying their spawn its first car was there with their fresh copy of Parkers out the Shell garage in hand. Pretty damn quick, it wasn't worth your while anymore.
The car dealer friends I have don't buy anything from auction anymore. All dealer direct or other contacts.
t out it and straight on eBay with a 50p start.That was before everyone started appearing at auctions. All of a sudden every doting father buying their spawn its first car was there with their fresh copy of Parkers out the Shell garage in hand. Pretty damn quick, it wasn't worth your while anymore.
The car dealer friends I have don't buy anything from auction anymore. All dealer direct or other contacts.
Auctions have never been busier and you can see the stock landing on autotrader
Definite decline in the quality of stock in the past few years with parking damage now very regular
<£5k 40+% margin easy, even 100% but then they take more of your time with prep and post sale repairs
£5k > £25k typically 20% margin except
for mainstream stuff where it is more like 12%
£25k + 10% ish
But its all in the buying
Definite decline in the quality of stock in the past few years with parking damage now very regular
<£5k 40+% margin easy, even 100% but then they take more of your time with prep and post sale repairs
£5k > £25k typically 20% margin except
for mainstream stuff where it is more like 12%
£25k + 10% ish
But its all in the buying
Edited by _Nathan_ on Tuesday 8th March 08:44
With respect to everyone who has commented on the thread, the job is massively different to how it was 5 or 10 years ago.
To give you an idea I used to buy 1000 cars a year from auction, used to make money on 9/10 of them, the faulty ones used to be easy to fix or if not back into the auction, today unless you are buying newish stuff with an auction warranty, probably a third will have serious faults that will wipe out any profit you may have made,if they can be fixed at all, coupled with you will be paying "into book" for the desirable stuff, leaving not a great margin.
You are competing at auction to buy cars, with the public, other traders, money launderers, people not registered for tax and vat giving them a huge advantage over the legit traders.
Then theres autotrader costs, 20 car website will be thick end of £1500 a month (with 2 prices increases a year), trade insurance, premises etc etc, you will probaly need to sell 8 cars a month or more to cover overheads, before wages.
Then you have the customers...be prepared to have the Sales of Goods Act thrown at you as soon as a car develops any fault, "I know my rights" etc etc, I want a refund" blah blah...it becomes wareing after a while.
So the picture I paint is bleak, but thats realistic..the flip side...IF you can get a decent supply of nice cars at the right money, direct from a main agent, you could cut out most of the above and sell to other dealers/garages, most are desperate for clean nice cars, quick easy clean business,good cashflow, you might make 100-200 a car BUT most of that will go in your pocket rather than on overheads, and you only need a mobile phone and the contacts.
If you MUST try the auctions, keep your job, dip you toe in the water and sell a couple from home, see if its for you and more importantly can you make it pay.
I cant emphasise enough, starting out you really dont want/need £3-4K overheads a month.
Good Luck.
POORCARDEALER said:
With respect to everyone who has commented on the thread, the job is massively different to how it was 5 or 10 years ago.
To give you an idea I used to buy 1000 cars a year from auction, used to make money on 9/10 of them, the faulty ones used to be easy to fix or if not back into the auction, today unless you are buying newish stuff with an auction warranty, probably a third will have serious faults that will wipe out any profit you may have made,if they can be fixed at all, coupled with you will be paying "into book" for the desirable stuff, leaving not a great margin.
You are competing at auction to buy cars, with the public, other traders, money launderers, people not registered for tax and vat giving them a huge advantage over the legit traders.
Then theres autotrader costs, 20 car website will be thick end of £1500 a month (with 2 prices increases a year), trade insurance, premises etc etc, you will probaly need to sell 8 cars a month or more to cover overheads, before wages.
Then you have the customers...be prepared to have the Sales of Goods Act thrown at you as soon as a car develops any fault, "I know my rights" etc etc, I want a refund" blah blah...it becomes wareing after a while.
So the picture I paint is bleak, but thats realistic..the flip side...IF you can get a decent supply of nice cars at the right money, direct from a main agent, you could cut out most of the above and sell to other dealers/garages, most are desperate for clean nice cars, quick easy clean business,good cashflow, you might make 100-200 a car BUT most of that will go in your pocket rather than on overheads, and you only need a mobile phone and the contacts.
If you MUST try the auctions, keep your job, dip you toe in the water and sell a couple from home, see if its for you and more importantly can you make it pay.
I cant emphasise enough, starting out you really dont want/need £3-4K overheads a month.
Good Luck.
Yeah I totally understand where you are coming from. Working in back street showrooms and main dealers, it's all pretty much the same story across the board.To give you an idea I used to buy 1000 cars a year from auction, used to make money on 9/10 of them, the faulty ones used to be easy to fix or if not back into the auction, today unless you are buying newish stuff with an auction warranty, probably a third will have serious faults that will wipe out any profit you may have made,if they can be fixed at all, coupled with you will be paying "into book" for the desirable stuff, leaving not a great margin.
You are competing at auction to buy cars, with the public, other traders, money launderers, people not registered for tax and vat giving them a huge advantage over the legit traders.
Then theres autotrader costs, 20 car website will be thick end of £1500 a month (with 2 prices increases a year), trade insurance, premises etc etc, you will probaly need to sell 8 cars a month or more to cover overheads, before wages.
Then you have the customers...be prepared to have the Sales of Goods Act thrown at you as soon as a car develops any fault, "I know my rights" etc etc, I want a refund" blah blah...it becomes wareing after a while.
So the picture I paint is bleak, but thats realistic..the flip side...IF you can get a decent supply of nice cars at the right money, direct from a main agent, you could cut out most of the above and sell to other dealers/garages, most are desperate for clean nice cars, quick easy clean business,good cashflow, you might make 100-200 a car BUT most of that will go in your pocket rather than on overheads, and you only need a mobile phone and the contacts.
If you MUST try the auctions, keep your job, dip you toe in the water and sell a couple from home, see if its for you and more importantly can you make it pay.
I cant emphasise enough, starting out you really dont want/need £3-4K overheads a month.
Good Luck.
Forgive me for asking, but I gather that you're rather successful financially what with the F word in your garage. Was that in the motor trade you made that success? thanks - S
workid1 said:
POORCARDEALER said:
With respect to everyone who has commented on the thread, the job is massively different to how it was 5 or 10 years ago.
To give you an idea I used to buy 1000 cars a year from auction, used to make money on 9/10 of them, the faulty ones used to be easy to fix or if not back into the auction, today unless you are buying newish stuff with an auction warranty, probably a third will have serious faults that will wipe out any profit you may have made,if they can be fixed at all, coupled with you will be paying "into book" for the desirable stuff, leaving not a great margin.
You are competing at auction to buy cars, with the public, other traders, money launderers, people not registered for tax and vat giving them a huge advantage over the legit traders.
Then theres autotrader costs, 20 car website will be thick end of £1500 a month (with 2 prices increases a year), trade insurance, premises etc etc, you will probaly need to sell 8 cars a month or more to cover overheads, before wages.
Then you have the customers...be prepared to have the Sales of Goods Act thrown at you as soon as a car develops any fault, "I know my rights" etc etc, I want a refund" blah blah...it becomes wareing after a while.
So the picture I paint is bleak, but thats realistic..the flip side...IF you can get a decent supply of nice cars at the right money, direct from a main agent, you could cut out most of the above and sell to other dealers/garages, most are desperate for clean nice cars, quick easy clean business,good cashflow, you might make 100-200 a car BUT most of that will go in your pocket rather than on overheads, and you only need a mobile phone and the contacts.
If you MUST try the auctions, keep your job, dip you toe in the water and sell a couple from home, see if its for you and more importantly can you make it pay.
I cant emphasise enough, starting out you really dont want/need £3-4K overheads a month.
Good Luck.
Yeah I totally understand where you are coming from. Working in back street showrooms and main dealers, it's all pretty much the same story across the board.To give you an idea I used to buy 1000 cars a year from auction, used to make money on 9/10 of them, the faulty ones used to be easy to fix or if not back into the auction, today unless you are buying newish stuff with an auction warranty, probably a third will have serious faults that will wipe out any profit you may have made,if they can be fixed at all, coupled with you will be paying "into book" for the desirable stuff, leaving not a great margin.
You are competing at auction to buy cars, with the public, other traders, money launderers, people not registered for tax and vat giving them a huge advantage over the legit traders.
Then theres autotrader costs, 20 car website will be thick end of £1500 a month (with 2 prices increases a year), trade insurance, premises etc etc, you will probaly need to sell 8 cars a month or more to cover overheads, before wages.
Then you have the customers...be prepared to have the Sales of Goods Act thrown at you as soon as a car develops any fault, "I know my rights" etc etc, I want a refund" blah blah...it becomes wareing after a while.
So the picture I paint is bleak, but thats realistic..the flip side...IF you can get a decent supply of nice cars at the right money, direct from a main agent, you could cut out most of the above and sell to other dealers/garages, most are desperate for clean nice cars, quick easy clean business,good cashflow, you might make 100-200 a car BUT most of that will go in your pocket rather than on overheads, and you only need a mobile phone and the contacts.
If you MUST try the auctions, keep your job, dip you toe in the water and sell a couple from home, see if its for you and more importantly can you make it pay.
I cant emphasise enough, starting out you really dont want/need £3-4K overheads a month.
Good Luck.
Forgive me for asking, but I gather that you're rather successful financially what with the F word in your garage. Was that in the motor trade you made that success? thanks - S
I admire people like yourself. I'm 23 (24 tomorrow) and I've already had one failed venture. I will not give up, however. Starting my new venture in the next months coming. This time it's something I love, as opposed to something I thought would make me money. It's not buying and selling cars, btw.
I work at an auction and see the good and bad sides of it. Some people do extremely well while others take a hit on 2 out of every 3 cars they buy.
It's certainly do-able but you need to be very selective on what you buy. We are fairly lucky in that we have 5 or 6 main dealers who ship 90% of their px's to us. These are generally the cars to buy. Don't get me wrong, there are some wrong'uns in amongst them but the majority are very genuine. Likewise we have many small time "driveway traders" selling the knackered junk they can't sell otherwise. Every auction is the same though.
As said above, I have been there for getting on for 10 years now and even in that short space of time, things have changed massively. Where private buyers used to be rare, they are plentiful now and are willing to pay more for the right car than a trader. They aren't looking to make money out of it. These cars will sell for well above book price and bordering on retail.
Now is the time to have a go if it's what you fancy doing, new plate has just come out, main dealers are at bursting point with px's so more than usual are being sent to auction. Putting that into perspective, one ford garage who normally send one artic load per week is sending us 5 this week. They need the space.
Funnily enough, the people that do well with us are the ones buying cheap cars that are easy to move on. Small profits but plenty of them. We have one guy who will buy 7 or 8 cars per week just from us and sell 40- 50 per month in local papers, eBay, gumtree etc. Making only £100-£200 or so per car but it adds up very quickly. Overheads are low as he does the majority of it himself. The man never sleeps!
Another chap that used to work for us now deals solely in LR defenders and does very, very well! The majority of these are bought at auction.
I would say the above is correct(he's a wise chap isn't he!) buy a car or 2 and see how you get on and go from there.
It's certainly do-able but you need to be very selective on what you buy. We are fairly lucky in that we have 5 or 6 main dealers who ship 90% of their px's to us. These are generally the cars to buy. Don't get me wrong, there are some wrong'uns in amongst them but the majority are very genuine. Likewise we have many small time "driveway traders" selling the knackered junk they can't sell otherwise. Every auction is the same though.
As said above, I have been there for getting on for 10 years now and even in that short space of time, things have changed massively. Where private buyers used to be rare, they are plentiful now and are willing to pay more for the right car than a trader. They aren't looking to make money out of it. These cars will sell for well above book price and bordering on retail.
Now is the time to have a go if it's what you fancy doing, new plate has just come out, main dealers are at bursting point with px's so more than usual are being sent to auction. Putting that into perspective, one ford garage who normally send one artic load per week is sending us 5 this week. They need the space.
Funnily enough, the people that do well with us are the ones buying cheap cars that are easy to move on. Small profits but plenty of them. We have one guy who will buy 7 or 8 cars per week just from us and sell 40- 50 per month in local papers, eBay, gumtree etc. Making only £100-£200 or so per car but it adds up very quickly. Overheads are low as he does the majority of it himself. The man never sleeps!
Another chap that used to work for us now deals solely in LR defenders and does very, very well! The majority of these are bought at auction.
I would say the above is correct(he's a wise chap isn't he!) buy a car or 2 and see how you get on and go from there.
minghis said:
I did it for two years and it was difficult then (6 years ago), even more difficult now. Problem is simple - everyone's at it and the margins are really low. Add the fact that you need to stand buy what you sell for at least three months most smaller guys can't cope with it.
The only possible way now, as I see it, is to set up properly, get a decent little car lot, do a deal with a trader or underwriter to take his stock, get all the insurances, finance providers, trade plates and warranties sorted and don't try to do it from home or part time. In reality it's all or nothing.
+1The only possible way now, as I see it, is to set up properly, get a decent little car lot, do a deal with a trader or underwriter to take his stock, get all the insurances, finance providers, trade plates and warranties sorted and don't try to do it from home or part time. In reality it's all or nothing.
Would agree totally. Those doing that are doing "ok" but buying at auction and reselling on gumtree or wherever from your home address and you're just scratching around in the dirt to be honest.
I think being able to offer finance is key. Much over £5,000 and its almost impossible to sell a car without finance, and stuff under £5,000 is likely to be middle aged and troublesome.
I see a couple of the local dealers here are moving almost exclusively to stuff up to a couple of years old that still under manufacturers warranty. Probably taking a slim profit but knowing they'll never see the car again.
Any trader i know is complaining that getting customers is not the problem, its getting good stock that they can retail.
workid1 said:
I admire people like yourself. I'm 23 (24 tomorrow) and I've already had one failed venture. I will not give up, however. Starting my new venture in the next months coming. This time it's something I love, as opposed to something I thought would make me money. It's not buying and selling cars, btw.
Failed ventures are the only real way you learn! I have had about 8-9 failed ventures since I was 18. In fact my last one completely flopped on its head, from 5 figures a month to £48 a month... I learnt a huge lesson here - don't put all your eggs in one basket!As said, it's very tough.
We started out selling cars £20k+ which means very few cars for sale compared to buying a lot of cheaper cars but that's the model we wanted to use for various reasons.
The hardest part is buying stock especially as we can't afford to buy lemons. The second hardest bit is trying to show that our cars are much better than ones than similar ones but priced much lower which trying to do in an advert is very tough.
What we've had a lot of lately is customers expecting a good couple of thousand off the asking price. We have a car for sale for £38995 and a couple of days ago I had someone ring up asking if we would take £35k for it. I can't believe people think that at this price point we have £5k+ in every car. There is a CAT D one for sale at £35k FFS.
Auctions are very hit and miss, there are just too many 'traders' and members of public going to them so finding other avenues is a must!
We started out selling cars £20k+ which means very few cars for sale compared to buying a lot of cheaper cars but that's the model we wanted to use for various reasons.
The hardest part is buying stock especially as we can't afford to buy lemons. The second hardest bit is trying to show that our cars are much better than ones than similar ones but priced much lower which trying to do in an advert is very tough.
What we've had a lot of lately is customers expecting a good couple of thousand off the asking price. We have a car for sale for £38995 and a couple of days ago I had someone ring up asking if we would take £35k for it. I can't believe people think that at this price point we have £5k+ in every car. There is a CAT D one for sale at £35k FFS.
Auctions are very hit and miss, there are just too many 'traders' and members of public going to them so finding other avenues is a must!
Also did this for a year, 10 years ago. Its ok and enjoyed driving so many different cars. Selling cars is easy enough, buying well is the holy grail of the industry though!
One thing I don't miss is being out on a Friday or Saturday night and having a call saying 'Can we come and see the car first thing tomorrow?'. Totally ruins your night because you know you'll have to be up and prepping the car early the next day. A 9-5 job after that was a breath of fresh air after that in terms of my time.
Good thing though is that its very easy to try this, you only need one car to get you going...
One thing I don't miss is being out on a Friday or Saturday night and having a call saying 'Can we come and see the car first thing tomorrow?'. Totally ruins your night because you know you'll have to be up and prepping the car early the next day. A 9-5 job after that was a breath of fresh air after that in terms of my time.
Good thing though is that its very easy to try this, you only need one car to get you going...
rich12 said:
What we've had a lot of lately is customers expecting a good couple of thousand off the asking price. We have a car for sale for £38995 and a couple of days ago I had someone ring up asking if we would take £35k for it. I can't believe people think that at this price point we have £5k+ in every car. There is a CAT D one for sale at £35k FFS.
It's not an unreasonable starting point for a negotiation?JimmyConwayNW said:
Vaud said:
It's not an unreasonable starting point for a negotiation?
It is. If all dealers now have to compete nationally on price due to customers searching nationally on autotrader ebay etc then if you price a car it has to be right to generate any interest.However if you're already the cheapest, why should you move £4K on price?
Given the intimation from the post in question that CAT D cars were £35K not "straight" ones.
The problem a lot of people have is, they expect that even when you've cut the price to the bone to be the cheapest in auto trader searches they still think you can lob thousands off and get "offended" when you cant.
I'd one woman at one point who couldnt get her head around the fact that the local main dealer would knock £1,000 off their headline price, fill the car with petrol and give her a bunch of flowers, but i would only move £100 on my price - even though i was £3,000 cheaper than the main dealer on the car in question
Vaud said:
It's not an unreasonable starting point for a negotiation?
It is not a good starting point. I would've been willing to knock maybe £500 off but I don't really negotiate with people over the phone. Never look at a car if you can't afford the 'sticker' price. I can almost guarantee that if I said yes to him, nothing would've come of it. He even asked if it came in manual too. I will never be rude to people like that but if you're serious about a car, you come and view it before trying to haggle.
rich12 said:
Vaud said:
It's not an unreasonable starting point for a negotiation?
It is not a good starting point. I would've been willing to knock maybe £500 off but I don't really negotiate with people over the phone. Never look at a car if you can't afford the 'sticker' price. I can almost guarantee that if I said yes to him, nothing would've come of it. He even asked if it came in manual too. I will never be rude to people like that but if you're serious about a car, you come and view it before trying to haggle.
Theres quite a few dealers locally here now who wont negotiate on price, only by a token gesture. They basically say "well, we're the cheapest on the net or you wouldnt be here, so we're not dropping out price further".
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