Sell Your Car Blog

Recognising which category your buyer is in when you want to sell your car is a vital step. If you are selling your car to the wrong type of buyer you won't get the best price

Here they are: this is going to be quick.

1) Private buyer for his own use - usually the best price is obtained here
2) Car Dealer - Should be able to get fair price but no more than for the market - his market and usually less than private buyer
3) Sell at auction - usually a bad idea
4) Private Dealer - a private buyer who trades in cars - not recommended.
5) Scrap metal - if your car is totalled.
6) Spare parts yard - if your car is totalled.
7) Family friend or Business aquaintaince - price may vary - this can be successful because they trust you but has the liability of damaging personal relationships if something goes wrong - also they may want a discount because you are their friend.
8) Family member - if you sell your car to your son or daughter - you may not see the money ever and it can create family tension - i'm not going to get into this here because it's a whole other kettle of fish and one mans pancake is another mans japatti.
9) Repo - well - they just take it off you and you get whatever they auction it at taken off your loan.
This is not good so make sure you don't gamble, cohabit with ladies of disrepute or have expensive drug habits - try to hang out with people who are doing a good job of surviving and are honest and get rid of your friends who are leading you astray. Get your sh*t together so it never happens again.

Well - the harsh truth - if you care to comment I welcome your views.

Graeme Sprigge

If you saw the comments from terrysmazda.com you would realize that they were a form of comment spam. I have had to implement turing codes to prevent automated spam bots. So this prevents unethical spammers from making an dishonest buck however adds 2 seconds to your posting regime.

All such posts will be deleted if they are off topic. I do encourage anyone with any tips on selling cars privately to post comments - it is your comments that are wanted.

A personal note regarding gambling sites - I will never endorse any form of gambling because I have seen the damage that this can do - nor do endorse pharmaceutical drugs. You will never see an advertisement for these on any of my sites and as such I find such spam personally affronting.

The internet though seen by some as a new freedom - in my opinion is not a freedom to do secretly what can't be done publically. Apply the moral code of whatever religion you practise and you won't go far wrong.
For those bereft of morality we have turing codes.

Auto Classifieds are a great way to sell your car. But you have a choice now to sell online, offline or a combination of both.

Let me just give you a few quick pros and cons that should jog a decision.

The Advantages of Online Auto Classifieds

- wide coverage
- nice pictures possible
- more space for description
- usually can be found from a search engine
- run it till you sell more common

Disadvantages:
- search means customer usually searching for that exact car or near
- depends on traffic of site as too whether your ad is seen
- lower trust from internet based advertising
- Misses non-internet people

The Advantages of Offline Auto Classifieds
- higher trust factor
- picks up online and offline buyers
- no computer knowledge or site technology to interfere with the buying process

Disadvantages
-pictures expensive
-less room for description
-may miss online only buyers.

You may be able to think of a few more. Now some facts. The 6 cars I sold last year, were all advertised in online AND offline auto classifieds, were sold for the price I wanted.3 from online classifieds and 3 from offline.

So from this statistic, my answer would seem to spread your message across both classifieds.

Well that's it for now. Just wanted to give you some food for thought.

Graeme Sprigge is an automotive writer. His website http://www.sellmycarforcash.com has numerous auto articles. For an article on how to write a classified ad, read http://www.sellmycarforcash.com/sell-my-car-articles/how-to-write-car-classifieds-ad.html

Hi, everyone.

Just want to let you know that I am adding a car detailing section to http://www.sellmycarforcash.com

You should detail your car before you sell it. Selling your car without detailing can cost you money.

There are a lot of little tricks you can do, for instance, if you car mats are dirty, you can wash them with warm soapy water and remove all the dirt. Dry them and then spray with a silicone spray. This will give your mats a new feel.

There's a lot to know about this and I'm slowly building the pages, so be patient.

As always if you want to see something included in the site you can email me.

My main site now is http://www.sellmycarforcash.com.

At the moment The 90 Minute Car Salesman is where I am 'giving away' my book.

But I think this is shortly going to end. At some random moment in the near future, I will start selling it again for what it's worth.

Where else can you learn how to get more for your car when you sell it.

My book covers every single area from research to negotiation.

Well, that's all for today. Please visit my other site and get in touch. Join my newsletter or send me an email.

P.S I am thinking of putting a really funny car story section on my site. So if you have an interesting car story send it in. It can be funny, shrewd, serious whatever you want. Best ones I will put on the site and people can vote for them or write in about them.

The thing I like about this idea is that we can all learn from each other. Different viewpoints and experiences. It's very educational.

Now that's really it.

Bye for now.

Car Classifieds| Auto Classifieds | How To Write A Killer Car Classifieds Ad.

I wrote this article primarily for release to an article site but I am including it here because it's relevant.

Graeme Sprigge

How to Write a Car Classifieds Ad - Part 2


In part 1 of this series I talked about some key points when advertising your car in classifieds. To get the most out of this final article in the series, I suggest you read Part 1 first.

Now, I promised I was going to give you a sample advertisement. So here goes.

The way I,m going to do it is to give you the ad first. See if you can work out why each element has been included and why? You should be able to do this if you have read and understood part 1.

*** 00 Ford Contour***
V6 2.5l,only 30k,1 female owner
n/smok,all pwr opt,auto,dual air,
exc cond,must see,must sell
$5100 call xxx-xxxx-xxxx

Now that looks harmless enough doesn't it. A classified ad usually doesn't have the punch that a full page ad can have or a TV ad.

But this is not a problem. Why? Because you are only really competing with other ads in a similar format. The only people putting better ads in than you are dealers and people looking at classifieds don't want to buy from a dealer.

So in that little space is where you need to shine.

Ok, so let's break it down.

The first line you have the little stars and it's in bold. That's your attention grabber.
It's not huge but remember you only need to make it stand out in relation to other ads.

It also has the make, model and don't forget the year - if you leave this out you are costing yourself inquiries.

Now the next section V6 2.5l gives more specific info about the car. It's the V6 2.5l engine version. More car identifying. It's important to identify the car fully.

The next part - only 30k - states that it is low kilometres. Cars generally wear out faster the more they are driven. So this is a good selling point.

1 female owner - female drivers are statistically less hard on their vehicles than males. Good selling point so mention it. (For security reasons if you do this it is a good idea to have the car viewed off your property in a public place with a male to help you sell it)

Non-smoker - shows not just that you don't smoke but that you are aware of the cleanliness factor in your car and hints that you most likely have kept it clean, without stating it.

All pwr options - more identifying data - has to be mentioned because it ads extra value. And the same goes for dual air - this adds the safety dimension.

Exc Condition - you basically have to make a statement of condition. A car in excellent condition has not been in an accident, has no rust, clean title and has had no bodywork. The paint looks new and interior is very clean. As well as being mechanically sound.

Must See and Must Sell - these little gems add a little bit of urgency. They work best in combination with this ad because the ad is for a pretty good car. If you were selling a wreck I wouldn't use them.

Now you must include the price in my opinion. I don't have the space to go into why fully. It has to do with buyer confidence. He doesn't want to have a price change done based on the sound of his voice or the way he dresses. It just takes one factor out of the buyer's confusion.

The last part is the call to action. Pretty simple. Instead of putting the phone number alone, add the word call in front of it. People actually respond to direct commands to do things. It's a principle of direct selling.

So that's it. I hope that has been helpful.

Happy Selling

Graeme Sprigge

Sometimes when you go to sell your car you are stumped as to how to write your ad. If you've never sold one before you just don't know what gets a response.

This is where a few pointers can put you in the success lane straight away.

Let's cover a few quick basics first. Like any sort of advertising there is a physical response at the other end.

For example, say you are reading a piece of junk mail. The advertiser has only a few seconds to grab your attention before you throw it in the bin.

His mission is to get you to read it.

It works like this. Say he prints 1000000 pieces. 1% read it and out of those 1% 10% buy. He has just sold 1000 units, which is pretty good.

Now if he can get 2% to read it and increase the buying rate by 2 times, he has just sold 4000 units - even better.

When you are advertising your car, you are competeting with other advertisers who are advertising similar vehicles in that price range.

Your mission is to get qualified buyers to call.

Imagine a buyer, he scans down the page and marks off advertisements - say every Toyota in the $10000 range in the model he wants.

Now that is if he is particularly thorough person.

But is everybody like this. No, they are not. People have lazy eyes. We are conditioned to have advertising thrust into our faces.

We are also conditioned sub-consciously to evaluate the quality of advertisements and make some sort of value judgement about the product at the other end.

It is only my opinion, but I believe we all pride ourselves on our ability to 'suss' out whether we want to follow something up or not.

Therefore you advertisements should be of sufficient quality to reflect your vehicle in it's best light.

The Mental Checklist

A buyer usually has a mental checklist in his mind when he is looking for a car.

E.g auto, low kilometers model, color maybe, what the wife wants. Reliable.

It's his checklist. Some of these things he would like to be able to isolate from the ad.

If you've ever looked through advertisements, you would be familiar with that spinning feeling where there are so many things on offer.

It is frankly a relief to settle on something you see and tick it off as something you are interested in.

The Easy Way Out.

Regardless of the better side of life and even with amounts of thousands of dollars, people are basicly still lazy. If you make your advertisement clear and answer as many details as you can you have done work for them. You have saved them time. Now they are ever so slightly in your debt and your rating goes up.

Generally people will take the easy way out.

Saving them time is money in your pocket.

Bigger Ad, Bold Lettering

No,it's not a myth and an attempt to bilk money from you by the newspaper. In my experience it works. It's based on solid principles. First you must get the buyer's attention and only then can he evaluate your ad.

Even when people see the big ad and they think they have worked out your strategy.

'Aha, he's trying to sway me with those bold letters. I'm not going to fall for that"

It doesn't matter. They still come back and the next thought they have is.

"Yeah, but what if that's because it's a great car. I better not miss out on that"

The fact of getting someone to see your ad is half the battle. What they do after that is mostly internal wackiness anyway.

The killer combination is to get your ad seen and write a killer ad, which answer's their mental checklist.

Mistakes advertisers make.

Leaving key information out - like whether it's auto or manual.

Apparently some people do this to encourage people to call.

Look guys, you don't want people to call to ask silly questions, you want the qualified and interested buyers to call - don't you?

This is just plain stupid. You will miss a lot of people just because you have annoyed them.

When they do call, you have a little hump to get over before you can close them to come and see your car.

Use of abbreviations

This is fine, so long as the abbreviation is decipherable. Use other classifieds as a guide to see what others use - don't make up your own language as there is no way anyone can figure it out.

That's the end of part 1. In part 2 of this article series, I'll give you some example advertisements as well as reveal some killer little lines that can prompt people to call.
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Graeme Sprigge is the webmaster of sellmycarforcash.com. He is also the the author of The 90 Minute Car Salesman. You can find more articles on selling your car in a private sale at http://www.sellmycarforcash.com This article may be reprinted provided this resource box is included. Copyright 2005 Graeme Sprigge
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Online car finance is convenient. You can apply over the net and shop around for a good deal from the comfort of your home.

But with the rise of scams on the net there are precautions you should take to make sure you are not being ripped off.

1) If you are in an english speaking country, the website you are dealing with should be in english. If the English is poor it could be a scam site.

2) Only deal with companies that publish full contact details on their site, such as phone numbers, preferably one in your country. Also they should maintain a physical office and also publish that on the web. A reputable company will have an office.

3) They should be listed in the phone directory as well, either the yellow or white pages.

4) No bank or finance company will ever send you an email asking for your passwords or account details.

5) Check a number of companies out before you make your decision. Compare the rates. Read all the terms and conditions.

6) E-loan and Capital One are two safe online finance companies and have passed all these checks from my research.

7) I recently reviewed an offer from a finance company that looked like it was from Russia, who didn't even have a phone number. They had all manner of explanations but it is simply not good enough. So go with professional companies. Remember, there is no such thing as something for nothing

Remember to seek competent advice from a professional such as accountant before making financial decisions.

For more articles see http://www.sellmycarforcash.com

Info about refinancing there is an article at http://www.sellmycarforcash.com/car-loan-refinance.html
You could save hundreds of dollars per year.

Copyright 2005 Graeme Sprigge

Sometimes financial circumstances push us to to ask, "How do I sell my car quickly?"

The first thing I recommend is that you stop.

Selling your car quickly is possible. I will buy your BMW for $50 but I don't think you would be happy.

Now you may want to sell your car fast:

1) To raise cash for another venture
2) To quickly buy another car that you want
3) To pay debts

So the first thing you should do is stop and assess the situation.

Why? Because the desire to sell your car fast is the sure road to getting a crap price. Desperation is the killer of your price. Sometimes you won't even be able to give your car away if someone senses you are desperate.

Do this exercise. Go for a walk. Walk around the block and look at the trees, the birds and a few people. This will help to calm you down.

Then come back and look at the situation again.

Is there another way I can handle the debt, such as getting a part-time job etc.?

Do I really need this other car or whatever right now?

Can I raise funds some other way?

If the answer is no and you definitely still need to sell your car fast, then you have to act as if you are not desperate to sell it, in order to sell it. It kind of works in reverse.

I cover this in a fair bit of detail in my book - The 90 Minute Car Salesman.

There is no real way to sell it fast for a great price other than doing the standard actions properly. There is no such thing as a quick fix.

Take a look at your situation honestly and see what it is about it that you are not facing and you will soon see a solution.

I hope this helps. Yes sometimes life is tough. But sell your car like you have all the time in the world and you will sell it faster and get a good price.

Tip 1 - Pick your time.
If you can possibly help it, don't sell your car after Christmas, when no one has any money.

Tip 2 - First Impressions are everything
Just like you are going on a date - first impressions are everything. Get all the rubbish and junk out of it. Deodorize it. Wash it, clean it.

Tip 3 - As the good boy scout says. Be prepared.
Get your paperwork in order. Find the spare keys etc.

Here you will find articles on how to sell your car, as well as other car tips, car matters and car product reviews.

Enjoy.