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Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

instamotor.com

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Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#91
post #38
post #34

Kill CarMax. Decentralize it. The sheer number of resources one dealership consumes boggles my mind: all the people, the mechanics, the land, the land, the land, oh, and the other acres of land.

I used to work in a car dealership group. The inefficiencies are terrifying. That's what led to this.

Best of luck!

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#92
This is a great service. Although eBay Motors and Craigslist exist for this opportunity, they are very impersonal and create just as many issues as they try to solve. Here's some feedback on the website and service. Hope it helps!

1. Redundant content: I felt like you repeated the same value proposition in nearly every section of your website. However, each section had one small tidbit that wasn't addressed anywhere else (e.g. only available in bay area).

2. Excessive calls to action: Although it's great that you have placed many calls to action (various buttons, sliders, etc.), it really confuses the user. Having one consistent message and/or placement might improve conversion. Just a hypothesis and one you should definitely A/B test.

3. Poor navigation: The "home" button in the footer navigates the user to an awkward anchor tag on the home page. The About page has a large image that makes it seem like a homepage rather than getting in to the actual content of the page. The Contact page is an overlay modal and may not even be worth creating as a separate page. Perhaps placing it in the footer is sufficient.

4. Commas: In your slider showing the different amounts you can save, you should be sure to a comma as a thousands separator or a decimal point + "k" or "thousand". This will increase impact and hopefully conversion as well.

5. Reposition: Seeing this on "Show HN" and seeing lots of copy/images in the beginning made your site seem like it was a just placeholders. It wasn't until I scrolled to the bottom did I see there were testimonials and cars that were actually sold. This content should be placed further up since it demonstrates some form of validation/social traction. It would be great to have a ticker or some other indicator of cars sold at some point when it gets bigger.

Best of luck and feel free to reach out for any clarifications.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#93

Having to enter a phone number to create an account resulted in a closed browser tab. Might want to consider this factor, can guarantee theres plenty more where I come from.

thanks for the note Matt. I think you're right and it's something we've debated before. In the end we decided to leave it in there. The first thing we do when you get started with us is call you to schedule the photo shoot for your car. We come to your place to do this at your convenience, but we need the phone number. We'll re-evaluate this over the weekend. Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate it!

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#94
Most dealer trade offers are so low because they don't even keep your car on the lot, they sell it at auction...at wholesale prices.

That is a lot different than individual sales...which is how this service sells your car. So yeah, you get a better price for your car, but the service still eats a good chunk of the sale price difference between dealer-trade and individual sale.

And "all the paperwork" amounts to downloading a bill of sale form and title transfer online with the DMV. It's not rocket science, nor time consuming. Certainly not worth hundreds of dollars.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#95
post #36

One point - take a look at the copy on your pricing slider. 'You Earn' makes it sound like that's all I'm going to get out of this deal. It took me a second to realize it was the difference between the dealership and instamotor.

Hey Chad, Thanks for the note. Yeah you're right. We'll make the update to clarify that. We had it as "saved" before, but that didn't seem to make sense. Still trying to find the right wording, but we'll update it today or over the weekend most likely. Thank you!

I also didn't care for the term "earn" either.

I think showing what they make from a dealer, then what they make from you like this:

Dealer Trade In: 10000

With InstaMotor: 10500 (+500)

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#97

Most dealer trade offers are so low because they don't even keep your car on the lot, they sell it at auction...at wholesale prices. That is a lot different than individual sales...which is how this service sells your car. So yeah, you get a better price for your car, but the service still eats a good chunk of the sale price difference between dealer-trade and individual sale. And "all the paperwork" amounts to downl…

People making 100-200k/year would love this service. People below that income range would want to sell privately themselves to make the most money. People above would just dump it at the dealer's and not care.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#98
post #34

Kill CarMax. Decentralize it. The sheer number of resources one dealership consumes boggles my mind: all the people, the mechanics, the land, the land, the land, oh, and the other acres of land.

Which is somewhat humorous, because the CarMax process is much easier than a traditional dealer.

Disclaimer: I have bought/sold over 10 cars with Carmax over the last decade.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#99
post #61
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Chad, Thanks for the note. Yeah you're right. We'll make the update to clarify that. We had it as "saved" before, but that didn't seem to make sense. Still trying to find the right wording, but we'll update it today or over the weekend most likely. Thank you!

"Increased earnings" ?

"Capture more value of the used car sales funnel?"

I jest of course. I think going for the simple "Get more cash out of selling your car." Is probably the simplest.

Re: Show HN: InstaMotor – Taking the pain out of selling your car

#100
As soon as you come to Seattle, I will sell my GTi with you (srsly)!

Ofc, you'll be awesome, so then the Seattle Government will issue legislation banning your awesome idea because Used Car Dealerships won't be able to compete, and they'll use their Good Ol' Boy network to shut it down.

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