171–180 of 215 posts
The way it says "you earn" I can't help but think that that is the total amount you will get. I would prefer it to say "you earn $95,000. $10,000 more than you would have with a dealership". Or something similar.
Great service! A lot of people don't have experience or simply don't want to deal with the Craigslist experience. Putting another option between a private party sale and the dealer is great. Questions that immediately come to mind - how do you handle negotiations, and how do buyers pay? How do you pay the seller afterward? (cash, verifying a cashier's check - other comments point out the common scams etc.) (Or is Ins…
All of these are excellent questions. I'll tackle them 1 by 1 (the is to say, we're still working through some of these items, this is just our current methods). 1. How do we handle negotiations: We talk to you, the seller and work to find a fair market price for the car. We have dealership level tools available for this. We come to an agreement on the minimum price you'd take. From there, we negotiate with the poten…
Great idea - good luck guys! Related note for the HN community, while we're on the subject: Unless you have time & money to burn, you really should never never never trade your car into the dealership. It's the worst price you're going to get along the used car supply chain. And even if you think you're getting a good price, it's because you're probably pairing it with buying a car (and paying too much for the car yo…
A car dealer can put a short or longer term warranty on a car that gives a buyer confidence.
If you are buying a used Honda from a Honda dealer who is reputable (and my guess is that is 99% of them are or they wouldn't remain franchised), as opposed to the local used car lot, you generally and on average are going to have better purchase security than buying a car from a stranger that does not come with any warranty or guarantee.
A car dealer also has (in theory) experienced salespeople who know how to drag the most money out of a buyer and exploit their weaknesses. You as a private seller don't. So you will (on average not the exception) not be able to get as much for the same car as the dealer will.
This is not to say that the idea presented by the OP won't work (because they appear to be adding a level of guarantee to the deal). Just that in the example you are giving there are reasons why "you buy a used car for 20k". Reasons that are separate from what you would get if you tried to sell the same car for 20k.
Great idea - good luck guys! Related note for the HN community, while we're on the subject: Unless you have time & money to burn, you really should never never never trade your car into the dealership. It's the worst price you're going to get along the used car supply chain. And even if you think you're getting a good price, it's because you're probably pairing it with buying a car (and paying too much for the car yo…
If you sell to a dealership that will sell the car themselves, you have some wiggle room on the trade-in price because you're cutting out 2 middlemen (wholesaler and auction). Also, don't forget the tax benefit you get by the lower price of the care you're buying. Not sure if this is new cars only but that offset can be thousands, depending on the trade-in value and new car cost.
To explain (for anyone not familiar since the way you phrased it might be confusing):
New car price: $30,000 Your trade in: $10,000
Net price: $20,000
So Sales tax 6%20,000 vs. 6% 30,000 (example of a state with 6% st)
If you sell the car yourself you can still use it as a trade in if you can coordinate with the dealer and your buyer and do what is known as a courtesy trade.
But you have to get the buyer to show up and take your used car when the dealer delivers your new car. The dealer does the paperwork and usually charges a few hundred dollars or less for handling the sale. It is well worth the trouble if you can get the cooperation from the buyer.
This post got nailed–hard–by the voting ring detector, but I'm restoring it because we want to see original work on HN. A "voting ring" is when people get friends to upvote their stuff. This is against the rules. We want stories to be on HN because they're good, not because they were promoted. It's sadly common for a great Show HN post to get demoted because its creators, eager to get it on the front page, tried to g…
I email my friends (that read HN) about finally going "public." Because they are my friends and they've heard about my ideas and work for a while now, they up vote.
Hi Guys, Val here from InstaMotor. We’re trying to be to car dealerships what airbnb is to the hotel industry. We’d love to get some additional feedback on the service. Any feedback provided is super beneficial. We’re specifically looking for some feedback on: 1. When you get to the site, within the first 30 seconds, do you understand what we do. Why or why not? 2. If you do understand what we do, would you ever use…
I have one right now that I will be selling (2012 Porsche) and my immediate reaction was a) I still have to prep and detail my car - I don't have to do that if I trade it in and b) 5% is to much. c) I don't want strangers driving my car. d) I don't want to be hassled with selling my car which is why I take the hit at the dealer. If you want to call it that.
Remember also that trade in deals are actually negotiable. Like anything else.
Also dealers actually typically try to slant a trade in toward giving you more money (so it gives you an incentive to buy thinking you are selling something valuable).
You might want to alter your % based on price. And also create a way of separating sellers of higher priced cars from more commodity vehicles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just listened to the This American Life episode "129 cars" about a month in a car dealership - SUPER fascinating look at the industry, with a lot of insider information: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/1...
Totally. That episode is one of my favorite TALs ever (second to 'Summer Camp', which despite having been done in the 90s is still totally relevant). In fact, I used a lot of the knowledge from '129 cars' to help with a recent purchase of a Jeep (not from that dealership, sadly). I'm going to write up a blog post about the experience - I learned a lot and it should be helpful to others.
Hi Guys, Val here from InstaMotor. We’re trying to be to car dealerships what airbnb is to the hotel industry. We’d love to get some additional feedback on the service. Any feedback provided is super beneficial. We’re specifically looking for some feedback on: 1. When you get to the site, within the first 30 seconds, do you understand what we do. Why or why not? 2. If you do understand what we do, would you ever use…
In addition, could you make a service where I can go into a new car dealership and buy a car in five minutes with financing. I just bought two brand new cars in the last six months and had to wait around for hours and leave dealerships after calling them up before I even left my house and telling them I want to buy x car at x price at x time of the day and they agree, but when I get there it's a nightmare.