Online Car Sales Are Booming But Are They Safe?

Online car sales are increasingly popular and are more safe than ever. As I mentioned last week, almost ¼ of all cars sold now were found on the internet! That is crazy numbers!

The nice thing about buying online it that it gives you an opportunity to research exactly what you want and know what is a reasonable price to pay. Making decisions on the lot can be intimidating and not very often a pleasant experience.

Once you have decided what you want then getting dealers to compete for your money will get you the best price. You can do it all by email and if you don't like what one says, you can easily hit the delete button.

If you find the car you like on eBay, just try to check that their feedback is reasonably high (98% and above) and read their feedback that they have left for others- that will tell you a lot about what kind of person they are. Also consider getting an inspection done by a professional mechanic before you buy. A lot of dealers have high prices on their inventory on eBay so also try to search for cars for sale by private party. There is a special search option in eBay to do that.

Consider using an escrow service like escrow.com if you are buying from a private party. The cost can be split between the buyer and seller because it will protect them both and make the title transfer a lot easier.

Stumble It!

Selling a Car Online for Free? Is Anything Really Ever Free?

One of the biggest topics online I keep tripping on these days is free, freemiums, free offers, free sites, freebies, free lunch pros and cons….(did you know if you Google ‘free’ that the #3 Ad is a test for Dumb Blondes? Huh? Would anyone normally pay for that?)…I have even seen people recently on one social networking site asking other members of the community for a free car!

But back to the point- I do have a lot of people ask me where they can list their car online for free. They want to join the rocketing trend of online car sales but don’t want to have to pay for it. My usual response is that you get what you pay for. Don’t get me wrong! Craigslist is fun and can get you some pretty great responses from your local area but it isn’t really maximizing the potential profit that you could earn from selling your car yourself by exposing your car to millions of buyers.

• Almost one quarter of all used cars sold were found online.
• Autotrader attracts more than 13 million qualified buyers to the site monthly.
• Cars.com is visited by more than 8 million auto shoppers each month.
• eBay Motors has over 12 million unique visitors a month
• Internet car shoppers visit an average of 10.5 sites throughout the online shopping process.
• 70% of all cars sold on eBay Motors are sold across state lines.

The nice thing about the free sites is that they have developed pretty good software to deal with a few pictures and translate some description to a local group of buyers. They are not easy to search and compare and the quality often leaves a lot to be desired. The great thing about the sites that you pay for is that they are all competing to create and maintain the most state of the art, user friendly, content driven sales spread to millions of ready and willing buyers. In other words, you get what you pay for!

Isn’t it logical that investing in a better advertising method nets you more money in the end? Who do you think makes more money in this day and age? Some one advertising a Dumb Blonde Test in the thick, paper Yellow Pages or on Google?



For a great debate on the economy of free.

Stumble It!

Price My Car: The Best Way To Set Price When Selling a Car

Mota has the greatest little widget on its site called Price My Car.

This thing is something to behold! Although a car veteran, I was like everyone else and numbed to the guides that are based on some weird algorithm of trade in versus private party against retail with a few bits thrown in of condition, mileage, location and a pinch of imagination and speculation. In the back of my mind (and probably every one else’s who has looked at those guides), I wondered why no one would buy my old car when I just knew that my car had to be the exception to the those guides!

But Price My Car isn’t like that theoretical experiment in consumer psychiatry. It is based on actual completed online sales and is the only one like it! Not even the giant online car markets can do this with their own data! I sound excited, don’t I…..well, I am because it is a revolutionary tool. By putting in your make, mileage, year and trim you can see real data of completed sales of cars just like yours (yep- your car was not special to the assembly line) and get a realistic idea of how you can set you sale price plus it will show you how much more $$ you will get than by trading your old car in to a dealer.

Whether you have decided to sell your car by parking it on the street with a sign you picked up at the hardware store or are going to go all out and put it front of millions and selling it online, knowing how to price your car is key to moving the it before you lose too much money in depreciation.

As an added benefit- use the tool to price your friend’s car and then watch them struggle to sell their own car when they insist that the guide price is higher than what you are telling them! They will come around eventually and get how the machine works and sell their car within probably 2% of that widget’s prediction.

Check it out, play with it, don’t be perturbed if your car is worth less than you think. You enjoyed it, right? That is the pleasure that we pay for loving our cars.

Stumble It!