Selling car in Autotrader - web or magazine?

Tracyk_2

We have been trying to sell our 3 year old Merc 220 through Autotrader on their web site only - with no luck.

They have 'suggested' using the magazine too - as they find this 'sells more cars'!

Do people still use the paper version for this price of car? I thought everyone used the web now - I know I couldn't be bothered trawling through the paper.

helping_hubby

We had hubbys car on the autotrader website for 4 weeks and did not have a single email or call. We then tried ebay (there was an offer at the time) and we sold it within a week. So I could recommend ebay.

Tracyk_2

I presume you are able to put a reserve price on it on Ebay?

ellou02

You can sell it as an auction - either starting from a figure you would let it go for, eg £10k, or you can start the auction at 99p, but with a reserve of, say, £10k so that will only sell if it goes above that figure. The benefit of starting at 99p and having a reserve is that it stimulates more interest as people think there is the chance they might get a bargain.

You can sell it as a Buy It Now - so it's listed for, say, £10k and if someone wants it, they click to buy it for that price there and then.

Or you can sell it as a classified ad, and they contact you to make the deal.

I think you get up to 12 photos, so make sure you use all of them to show the car off to it's full potential, also make sure you show any problems- like if the only issue is a scratch on the driver's door, make sure you take a pic of it so people know what they are dealing with.

To get an idea of the price it might get, you can search on completed items to see what other people's have gone for.

Good luck!

geordie_joe

ellou02 wrote: »

The benefit of starting at 99p and having a reserve is that it stimulates more interest as people think there is the chance they might get a bargain.

And the down side is people make bids, get a "Didn't reach reserve price" message and give up. You have to hope enough people come along and make one more bid in the hope they reach the reserve.

For a 10K reserve starting at 99p you will need a lot of people bidding to get up to the reserve.

You may get someone who looks at it and thinks 8K is a bargain, so bids that. But in my experience nobody will bid 8K as a first bid just in case the reserve is only 6K.

Bidders tend to bump the bid price up a little at a time as they don't know what the reserve is and don't want to bid too much over it. They usually just bid the next amount, and then the next, and then the next etc. After a few bids and not getting above the reserve they lose interest.

Setting your starting price too far below your reserve may generate interest, but it will also cause bidders to lose interest before they have bid enough to reach the reserve. Interest, or bids below the reserve price, are not much use to a seller.

ellou02

Geordie Joe, I'd agree with you there - plenty of people won't even bid on items with reserves on them, incase the seller thinks the item is worth an unrealistic amount.

I thought I'd put the bit in about a reserve as the OP specifically asked if you can put a reserve on.

Generally, with a good listing, good pics, etc an item will find it's correct value on ebay, give or take - so starting at 99p with no reserve is not a bad way to go (although can appear scary to have a bid of £60 after a couple of days! - most of the action will happen in the last hour)