Anybody has used dealerbid.co.uk

jerrynbbt

Here is an interesting example -

We have just purchased a Porsche 997 via dealerbid booking at £32,000 adjusted for miles. Webuyanycar.com offered the guy £27,000 buythecar offered slightly more at £27,700 a Porsche dealer (not sure which one) offered £29,500 and a couple of other dealers on dealerbid apparently offered anywhere between £29k- £30k.

We have just purchased (and now collected) the car for £31,000. Please keep in mind that we are going to be in September in a few days and the car will drop in the guide also, usually around £400 also.

We actually work off CAP guide, if I remember rightly the car booked less in Glass's so it may be that most of the car buying sites are working off Glass's guide.

gogsboy

jerrynbbt wrote: »

Remember if there is a margin of say £1500
The buyer will no doubt want some discount - Say £300

VAT - £300

How does that work exactly.

Even is the margin was £1500 the VAT would be £250

However if you gave a discount of £300 then the margin is £1200

Thus making the VAT due £200

mobilejo

resurrecting an old thread but my advice is save your money. Perhaps at first they had genuine dealers on there making offers to buy vehicles, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I signed up yesterday and have had nothing but offers from other car buying companies that can't even compete with WBAC and other big car buyers on line.

As soon as your ad goes live, you will get a number of 'enquiries' but these are not enquiries at all, they are auto-response messages from companies that have set up alerts on dealer-bid. The autoresponse will either ask for info about the car (which is a waste as you have probably put that info in your dealer-bid ad) or asking what your lowest price is.

If you respond with a price that is higher than WBAC you will replies telling you "that's too much, WBAC will knock you down as soon as you get there so their quotes are worthless. Our price is less than their quote but more than they'll give you". Most just won't reply at all proving that the initial auto-responses you got mean nothing as they are not interested at all, it's just a ploy by dealer-bid to attract those who haven't yet paid the £10 by being able to show them 6 enquiries have been made about the car. They then ask you to pay the £10 to see the enquiries.

My problem isn't with the buyers on their offering bottom dollar for the car - that's what you expect from the industry - it's with dealer-bid promoting themselves as an alternative to the normal industry tactics by (as they say) putting you in touch with the end dealers who logically will pay more than WBAC, when in reality, you have paid £10 to have 10 more WBAC wannabe's trying to offer you less than WBAC and the other big car buyers.

jerrynbbt

Have to say it sounds like you havent given enough time for your listing to to filter through to everybody.

I have been a buyer on their website for 7 years now and have bought lots of cars. Mainly higher-end in all honesty but I know for a fact that there are buyers for most types as I've moved on some of my part exchanges through the site too.

As with all type of advertising (and thats essentially what you are doing when using the site) things dont happen over night and I think 24 hours isnt going to be enough time. I have clients I have built up over the last 25+ years that contact me direct as soon as they are looking to buy a new vehicle and the site has been a lifeline when it comes to buying quality stock but some of the cars I have purchased might well have been listed for a few weeks... I cant give examples as I dont recall completely but I personally tend to purchase for customers rather than stock so tend to browse rather than react to the broadcast notifications.

The problem is with anything like this everyone is going to be bias to their own individual experiences but to say it is a waste of time and money for everyone I think is a bit blinkered (especially for price of a couple of coffees from Costa). I have no idea what type of vehicle you have been trying to sell so cannot comment on prices or why you have had mainly the car buying companies contact you than dealers but could this be down to the age or mileage of the car?

Everybody does know that the car buying companies have had a bad wrap with changing prices, its no secret so I can understand to a certain extent why this would get mentioned but I can wholeheartedly say that the concept of how the site works in putting your car in front of dealers like me, does work, we do buy cars and we do tend to pay more money than the usual car buying sites. I've got the feedback to prove it!

mobilejo

jerrynbbt wrote: »

Have to say it sounds like you havent given enough time for your listing to to filter through to everybody.

I hope you're right Jerry, it's just that my experience after the first day (well second now) is what it is though - numerous WBAC wannabe's trying to lowball me so they can 'middle man' the car just like WBAC. It's exactly what dealer-bid is supposed to avoid and that's my biggest problem - so far my experience has not been as described.

The car books at just under £30k. Its a 3 year old Audi with under 30k miles, FSH (main dealer), HPI clear without a cosmetic or mechanical blemish. I'm the second owner. No problems for the right dealer.

jerrynbbt

Hi I've found your car, Audi A7?
I would be a buyer of this but your book figure is way off? Where have you got this book figure from?

I have ran not your car but the same same spec car, miles etc through a well known car buying site and it is coming back with £23,000, this is a definite low ball but we would be £1500 ahead of this if interested and the car could be collected this within next 7 days.

I cannot believe you havent had any offers above this figure to be honest. It might be worth asking them to rebroadcast the listing in case there has been a problem. I also know a couple of very good Audi buyers on the site I will email and ask to take a look and see if we can help you out.

You can buy me a coffee if I get it sold for you though ;-)

mobilejo

It was a glass valuation at just over £28k but I wasn't trying to be overly specific, just pointing out that we weren't talking about an old or high miles car here.

Anyway, if you have passed the word on to some of your contacts it may have worked because I'm talking to what appears to be a real dealer with a real customer looking for a similar car. Thanks - I may just owe you that coffee!

mobilejo

mobilejo wrote: »

It was a glass valuation at just over £28k but I wasn't trying to be overly specific

Just to be clear that's what the dealer would sell it for, not what I was expecting for it!

jerrynbbt

Hi Jo,

Yes that is retail money, a dealer would sell the car for £27,995 so I wouldnt be expecting to get much more than 25k for the car realistically.

I have spoke and emailed a couple of guys I know a good buyers of Audi and it sounds like both have actually already contacted you via the site and one you are trying to deal at 25k so to be honest you have had a result because I personally think the car is worth £24500 tops and that would be for now as we dont have too much longer left of October.

Thats a £2k increase above what I could find on any of automatic valuation sites... the key word there is "Valuation" the figures these sites give are computer generated valuations not offers from a dealer.

This is why they are constantly inflated at the front end and reduced when you go to sort all the paperwork out. It would be interesting as an experiment to see of the 23k I found online how much you would get when you actually took the car to them, I bet its closer to 22k.

This is what has given the trade a bad name it really is. It makes things harder work for us genuine dealers as people get messed around and not only that I believe in honesty up front so what I offer is what I pay, if a site quotes you more, and then you travel to them only to be told its £600 less most people will deal anyway to save trouble, everyone loses apart from the websites.

This is why I can understand dealers trying to explain this when they have contacted you because its extremely frustrating but I'm certainly not going to get on the bandwagon and start doing the same as to me its ethically not right, i'd want to punch my lights out if I'd travelled 100 miles for me to tell you I think your cars worth £500 less now and I leave that to my wife when I'm late back from the Pub on a Friday :-)

mobilejo

jerrynbbt wrote: »

Hi Jo,

Yes that is retail money, a dealer would sell the car for £27,995 so I wouldnt be expecting to get much more than 25k for the car realistically.

I have spoke and emailed a couple of guys I know a good buyers of Audi and it sounds like both have actually already contacted you via the site and one you are trying to deal at 25k so to be honest you have had a result because I personally think the car is worth £24500 tops and that would be for now as we dont have too much longer left of October.

Thats a £2k increase above what I could find on any of automatic valuation sites... the key word there is "Valuation" the figures these sites give are computer generated valuations not offers from a dealer.

This is why they are constantly inflated at the front end and reduced when you go to sort all the paperwork out. It would be interesting as an experiment to see of the 23k I found online how much you would get when you actually took the car to them, I bet its closer to 22k.

This is what has given the trade a bad name it really is. It makes things harder work for us genuine dealers as people get messed around and not only that I believe in honesty up front so what I offer is what I pay, if a site quotes you more, and then you travel to them only to be told its £600 less most people will deal anyway to save trouble, everyone loses apart from the websites.

This is why I can understand dealers trying to explain this when they have contacted you because its extremely frustrating but I'm certainly not going to get on the bandwagon and start doing the same as to me its ethically not right, i'd want to punch my lights out if I'd travelled 100 miles for me to tell you I think your cars worth £500 less now and I leave that to my wife when I'm late back from the Pub on a Friday :-)

Thanks Jerry - Yes the guy I am talking to is genuine, very much like you, and honest. If his customer wants the car, we'll have a deal at a price we are both happy with provided we can get it done before month end. If she doesn't, then that is life, but the guy will have held up his end either way as he is not making promises he can't keep. I can't ask for fairer than that.

There is a lot of rot in the trade and as you say, alot of companies giving it a bad name, but guys like you and the seller I am talking to do redeem it.

It's a shame that the instant contact I got initially on dealerbid was from the bad ones; because there are decent buyers on there but as you say, you have to give it a day or two. My suggestion to dealerbid is to remove the option for buyers to use autoresponders - only allow buyers to contact sellers when they have read the ad and are serious. Other than that, I must say that my first impressions have now been proven wrong and I would probably use dealerbid again TBH.

Hope the next black eye the wife gives you isn't too painful :beer: