Thread: Buying or Selling a car on the Net

Through the years I have always counted on the web to list and sell my cars when I am ready to move to the next purchase. Sometimes the experiance is a quick and easy one and other times it can be difficult. So here are a few questions that I have been thinking about. I would appreciate some opinions on the topic..

What features/services would benefit the buyer/seller to expedite the experience?

How can this process be made better?

What are sites like these lacking?

1. Cars.com
2. Ebaymotors
3. Autotrader

Steve

The best solution would be a site that has the ability to do the following four things:

- target local markets (like Craigslist)
- provide trust and protection models (like eBay)
- provide specific value-added auto services (like cars.com, autotrader.com)
- provide access to a large networked base of users (like all the sites you listed)

I actually have a lot of experience in these types of online markets; feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions...

I feel that the big sites like autotrader and cars.com cover all these criteria already. I am looking for functions that would make an individual choose one website over another. Is market exposure to traffic the main factor when shopping for a place to put your car for sale?

Originally Posted by Toiletcake

I feel that the big sites like autotrader and cars.com cover all these criteria already. I am looking for functions that would make an individual choose one website over another. Is market exposure to traffic the main factor when shopping for a place to put your car for sale?

Personally, I think for most people the "trust" factor is the largest component. If there were better protection models for large online purchases, all these sites would be making a *lot* more money.

This is where eBay has an advantage, but unfortunately, they don't have much of a local presence just yet...

Very good points. Thank you much!

Trust factor was a key for me. I located my car on autotrader.com but found what seemed to be a much better deal in on Ebay.com Autotrader the car was closer....I could drive and see it, test drive it, ect. I bought the car (He said I was the first one to even look at it!) I had done my research and got a good deal on the car. The better deal? It was on ebay.com but in Cali (I am in NC). I could never buy a car without test driving it, especially without any kind of warranty which mine did not include (private seller). Overall, my experience went great and I got a great deal on my car which I still have to this day!

I don't know if any of the sites that were mentioned has this, but how about a SafePay Escrow, like they use on http://guru.com/index.aspx

Originally Posted by JScott

The best solution would be a site that has the ability to do the following four things:

- target local markets (like Craigslist)
- provide trust and protection models (like eBay)
- provide specific value-added auto services (like cars.com, autotrader.com)
- provide access to a large networked base of users (like all the sites you listed)

I actually have a lot of experience in these types of online markets; feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions...

my country just started having sites like craiglist of recent and i want to replicate what u guys are doing over there on cars.com ebay and the rest....please can i get some of ur tip, cos i think i ve got an idea on establishing in the virgin markets now.

i personally feel this is already an over saturated market, and looking for another car myself i have to take daily trips to ebay, gumtree, autotrader, carandclassic, pistonheads and ALL of the related modes I'm interested in's forums, clicking on each of their ****ing filters to search for cars... whats worse is I'm open to about 5 brands of cars and 8 different models... so 8 separate searches on every site is a real time killer...

its not that these sites "lack" anything, its the fact that the car I'm after could be on ANY one of them... (if not all of them!)

instead of jumping in the already full pool, why not make a site that takes listings from ALL of the above mentioned websites and allows you to filter results based on what your looking for, (please allow more than 1 search filter!)... even allowing users to sign up and "add" cars they are interested in and notifying them by email when a new car pops up they may be interested in, giving them a tailored search with results of all cars they are looking for, and links to the respective sites...

could then obviously allow people to advertise their cars for sale on your website, undercutting all of the above, assuming the website catches on of course.

Originally Posted by Toiletcake

I feel that the big sites like autotrader and cars.com cover all these criteria already. I am looking for functions that would make an individual choose one website over another. Is market exposure to traffic the main factor when shopping for a place to put your car for sale?

exposure is by far the biggest thing in my books when i goto sell a car and one of the reasons i also post my adds on driftworks.com, not "exactly2 my target audience, but threads get ALOT of views and most users there have, or want a 2nd car. I've always found ebay to be the best place to sell my car, pistonheads next, then autotrader, gumtree barely gets any interest.

Originally Posted by JScott

Personally, I think for most people the "trust" factor is the largest component. If there were better protection models for large online purchases, all these sites would be making a *lot* more money.

By this, do you mean there are actually people who go ahead any buy cars unseen? Protection for them?

Or protection in sense that ads need to be more genuine, so that what you see will likely be what you get when you visit a seller?