Lisa Mitchell
With a lot of people looking to buy cars online it becomes easy to sell your used cars over the internet; however, it requires a neat approach to put your car on sale and close the deal successfully. This article aims to provide you five surefire ways of selling used cars at a reasonable price to get the full value of your asset.
1. Understand The Market
Apparently, there are numerous ways to value your car such as Kelly Blue Book, NADA Guides that can assess and set a price according to your car’s present condition, mileage it had covered and geographical location. However, the best way to find out the value of your car is to run a search on classified sites. Classified ads can give you a fair idea about how much others are asking for your kind of car. Make sure you filter your search because private parties will have a different price as opposed to the dealer’s price.
Sites such as eBay and Yahoo Autos will allow you to filter your search, just select the year and trim of the car and you will get the list of similar cars listed on the site; carefully look at the pricing, geographical location and make an educated guess to determine the price of your car.
Remember; you can get better value for your car if you sell it yourself rather than trading it with dealers. Dealers will give only 30% of the fair market value and if your car is less than 4 years old then dealers will give you at least $2000-3000 less than the market price.
2. Price the Car Competitively
After you complete the research; now it is time to set the price, although there is no proven or approved methods of setting the price you can follow your guts and instinct to determine the price. Make sure to give little room for bargaining. For instance; if you want to sell your car at $10,000 then list the price at $11,500; people are likely to negotiate in large amount; some people would straight cut $2,000 from the asking price. You should be in a position to accommodate lower offers; the people who bargain harder are more likely to buy it and certainly, you do not want to lose the chance of selling your car.
Car dealers use various tactics to sell the car such as setting the price at $10,995 rather than $11,000. It is a psychological game they play to sell the car; however, you don’t want to look and sound like a car dealer. So keep it simple make it a round figure such as $9,000 or $7,500, etc.
3. Enhance your car’s ‘Curb Appeal’
Generally, most of the buying decisions are split-second decisions, which mean when someone looks at the car he will decide whether to buy it or not in first few seconds; so make sure that your car looks neat and visually attractive. Do not restrict it to washing. Below mentioned are the to-do list to enhance your cars ‘curb appeal’.
- Wash and vacuum clean your care in a detailed manner
- Make sure you repair dents, dings, and scrapes before you show it to prospective buyers
- Throw away all the accumulated junks from the inside and keep it clean; prospective buyers are going to go for a test drive and nobody likes to buy a car that stinks or feels like claptrap from the inside
- Clean windows, mirrors and front glass thoroughly
- Keep your maintenance records ready
- Give your car a full servicing including the routine oil change before you list it for sale
- Get a mechanic and check your car’s condition; this could come handy while negotiating with the prospective buyers
- Get vehicle report from AutoCheck.com to prove the title and odometer accuracy
4. Negotiating Strategy
Negotiation is an art; however, you do not need to be a master of the art, all you need to do is; get printouts of car pricing websites that could validate your car’s market price. Some buyers will try to find out faults in your car; in case of such buyers, you need to defend yourself with valid reasons. Some buyers would come up with absurd ideas such as they do not have money and so on. Do not get depressed or carried away by emotional babbles. Irrespective of the buyer’s stance your car still deserves the market value.
For most of the buyer’s mileage, odometer accuracy and wreckage are the important concerns, therefore; make sure you show them the copy of AutCheck report so that they can drive back home feeling good about the car.
5. Advertise your Car
Now it is time to put the car for sale; you can advertise in the newspaper; however, internet advertising is advisable because of its wider geographical reach; people can search for Used Cars San Diego or Texas and so on; internet’s reach makes it the best platform. You can place your ad in Cars.com, Craigslist.com and eBay Classifieds; while some of them are free, some websites charge money to run the ads. You can use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to let your friends know about the sale. Take advantage of online forums to sell your car; you might find prospective buyers already on the hunt for a car.
Make sure to answer the calls and texts immediately, buyers might not leave messages for you to call them back. Be courteous to people while answering the phone; make it sound like a good deal. Never try to hasten the selling process, keep it simple and easy.
By following these five simple methods you will be able to sell your car at a good price; do not get impatient, it might take few days to get the first customer, but eventually, you will be able to find a buyer who is more than willing to buy your car. Do not get disheartened by the rejections. Keep answering phones and keep meeting people; and definitely on one fine evening, you will say goodbye to your car.
