Selling your car online
Selling your car can be a frustrating experience. Choosing to go privately can be a stressful and often a long process whereas selling through a dealer may be quicker but you won’t make anything like you had hoped.
With neither of these options particularly appealing, if you’re looking to sell your car then there are a growing number of online options that can turn the ordeal into a done deal.
But with so many ways to sell online, which are best suited to you? Here are a few of the more popular options if you’re trying to sell your car.
Finding the right price
Before you think about listing your car, finding the correct price is essential so that you don’t under-price yourself or scare any potential buyers away with an inflated valuation.
There are many independent options online that will give you a valuation based on you filling in details about your vehicle with Whatcar?, Parkers and Autotrader are popular choices for an accurate assessment. There’s also Motorway which bases your valuation on live data from its own sales and industry data to be as up to date as possible.
It’s best to use as many sources as possible to find the value of your vehicle as discrepancies in price are inevitable and you will be able to work out the average.
Car Buying Websites
Their annoyingly memorable ad campaign has made we buy any car the leading option when we think of online car selling. Their process is short with you inputting the details and then arranging a member of staff to evaluate your car, sounds simple, but it comes with its own set of problems.
As much as their advertisements show an enjoyable and relaxed click and sell process, the cost of the website’s easy method is that they will offer a much lower valuation than other selling options.
If you’re looking to sell your car quickly and safely it’s a great deal and with cars being sold for as little as £75 there’s little chance that you won’t fill their criteria but you will be paid less than if you went privately.
We buy any car may have the jingle but there are lots of other almost identical used car buying services including we want any car and money4yourmotors.
Motorway is one of the newer options, but also one of the most promising. It was founded on the idea that the car buying industry isn’t as fair and transparent as it should be, and looks to fix that. Their service is quick, simple, and completely free from any charge like hidden transaction fees. Dealers make an offer on your car, and the highest offer will be presented to you. If you approve, your car will be collected from your home, for free, and customers are usually paid the same day, too.
So if you are planning on selling your car online then the best tip is to shop around. Many websites will offer evaluations but some will attempt to haggle a better deal after the initial price, so read the small print and make sure you’re happy before you sell your car.
Online Auction
You can find anything for sale on Ebay and people using the site to sell their used vehicles has risen over the last few years.
It lacks the guaranteed sale that sites like we buy any car offer but if you find your vehicles being bided on by more than one buyer you may find the price rising much more than you ever imagined.
There is a small cost to place the advert and you’ll want to put a reserve price in case the sale is lower than you hoped, which means you will not sell unless it’s at a valuation you’re comfortable with.
Auction sites can be a gamble as you never know who will bid but as long as you have a high-enough reserve price you won’t sell for anything less than you expect and the buyer will be legally bound to complete the purchase.
Online Advertisements
Placing an advert on one of the many car selling websites is potentially the most profitable method of selling a car online as you set the price and can pick and choose the offers that come in.
It can feel like an impersonal experience and you should expect haggling even if you have a set price but you are exposing your vehicle to the largest possible audience available and your chance of selling is high.
With any private sales across the internet you should be wary of any criminals using the anonymity of the internet to attempt to trick and scam you. Just remember you are in control and don’t sell until you’re happy with the offer and the buyer.
Have you sold your car online?
Rachel - Silversurfers Assistant Editor
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