Top Car Selling Sites For Flippers
In the last blog post, I made an undertaking that in the following blog post I would focus on the marketing media for the car flipping business. I however could not even begin exploring this as I started looking at the development of a pricing strategy in marketing your car. My core focus will be on the top car selling sites to help you make a quick flipping sell indeed.
How to price your car for a sale blog post was indeed elaborate and extensive covering a range of subjects in there. I would strongly advise you to go take a look at after going through this post as we continue to build our blueprint for the lucrative car flipping business. I’m so excited though about some of the things I will be exploring on this post on the marketing media for your car. It’s just going to be interesting as we get to understand the power and the handicaps of some of these common marketing media platforms.
Not all Media is Good for Your Car
Having looked closely at multiple media platforms; the perceptions and reputations they carry amongst many potential buyers I have concluded that not all of them are good for every niche of cars especially the used cars we are focusing on.
It is therefore important to make a critical assessment of all possible and available media before you just go ahead and post your adds on them. There are many marketing platforms that come for ‘free’; most of these will help in kick-starting your marketing and sales journey. A few are of course not as free as they seem. Some have hidden costs like the admin and other miscellaneous fees once you secure a buyer.
Some on the other hand have horrible reputations in the market. You will find some that are associated with scammers and such kind of people. Just the mere fact of your name appearing on those platforms may just put a dent in your reputation and inevitably cost you big time on your potential future sales. For legal reasons, I won’t be disclosing any such names. The onus is on you though to research and find out which are those platforms to avoid.
Let’s closely look at five top car selling sites to consider to clinch your flipping deal:
eBay motors
eBay has in the last few years stepped up to be the go-to place for buyers of used cars. There was a time when the idea of buying a car online used to be frowned at let alone eBay.
A great deal of this said frowning was really based on the frauds and scams that used to prey on innocent online shoppers. That framework of thinking is no longer there partly because of genuine control measures that eBay has put in place to protect buyers and sellers on their platform. The other reason for the change is because the realities of life, in general, have changed the perceptions about the e-commerce landscape. Doing business online has now just become a daily lived reality.
For those reasons among others, eBay has just become a go-to place for a lot of buyers and sellers of automobiles. It therefore would be an ideal space for any car flipper to post their merchandise in. One of the great things about eBay is the ability to actually build your own store. Using the store you can build a reputation by your variety or line of merchandise.
The several selling instruments on the platforms can be used to push your products to your potential buyers. Having an eBay store with more just one car gives the seller the ability to make an informed analysis about the sales performance of different cars (a type of cars; models, price points; and many more considerations). Such analysis puts you in a better position as a seller to know which types of cars to focus on in your next flipping projects. You can move away from a hit and miss approach in your flipping business.
Preloaded Specs for Different Makes
One of the most difficult things about posting cars for sale on many of the available selling platforms is filling in the volumes of spec info. At times such information is actually not known by the seller especially if the has not been owned for a reasonably long period of time. eBay has gathered much of this critical information much to the convenience of many sellers and thereby cutting down the time spent on the posting process.
The car flipping business hinges a great deal on time. Therefore anything that allows a seller to take better control of time is actually most welcome. All that may be needed in the postings at times is just adding the make; model; color; and few unique things look like the mileage and other such attributes.
While in there the platform at times will make price suggestions for you based on what other similar vehicles are selling for. As per our last (blog post), there are several other pricing considerations to make to get a particular price. However still as per how I put it in the last blog post also it is important to stay within the market price.
Facebook Market Place
Facebook Marketplace has also lately become the go-to place for both buyers and sellers of a wide range of merchandise including cars. The platform has dedicated category vehicles that allow sellers to post anything in that range and related items.
Consequently, there are more sellers of related items like replacement parts; tools, and accessories which in turn can drown your postings. The platform itself is very popular by virtue of sitting on the biggest social media platform. Hence while you run the risk of being drowned by multiple other postings of cars and related items you have a high chance of someone bumping onto your listing due to the sheer size of traffic.
Go Technical on Specs
Facebook Market Place is not as technical on specifications as other vehicle sales platforms like AutoTrader and cars.com. To some extent, this may seem and sound like a disadvantage. As a seller you can take advantage of this; by choosing to be as technical and detailed as you possibly can. This without a doubt will make you stand out from ‘chance sellers’.
The platform has a ‘save’ button for users; which means even those who may not be searching for a car at that particular time can save your post for future reference. When they choose to save any of your posts Facebook will usually then target them to take action on that particular post. The algorithm will also target them for other similar listings. If all your listings follow that detailed approach you will soon build a community of potential buyers for all your merchandise. This means, therefore; that you cannot be slack in your postings with non-detailed posts if you are to stand out.
A number of people with a technical view of cars may probably not think of Facebook as that place to search for cars but many if not most of them have accounts with the platform. In their ‘free’ browsing time you can capture them with your impressive posts. Most of them have a ‘thing’ with vehicle details; they can sniff them from far. When your posts are done right, you will surely not miss them; they will give you the requisite attention. It is this ability to grab potential buyers’ attention that will slowly build you a solid buyers community even from the unlikely platform.
Auto trader
Autotrader is a solid vehicle market place with an impeccable history of positive reputation in this space. They have mastered the craft for sure. They are not a random market place hence they are leaders in the pack.
Those who visit the platform are not coming to the platform for anything but cars. Most people who visit the platform are clear on what they want and in most if not all cases are there to buy a vehicle. The community of people in this space is far advanced in buying decisions. If you give them what they want or something near what they have in their minds they will grab it.
It is a platform you can not just ignore as a seller, either can you be casual with your listings. The caliber of both buyers and sellers on the platform is not casual either.
Cars.com
This platform is one of the foremost and leading buyers and sellers digital marketplace. Like AutoTrader, they have been in the game for a longer time than most platforms. They have been in the space for over twenty years since 1998. Cars.com has several other category-specific platforms like NewCars.com; Auto.com and PickupTrucks.com through which your vehicle can be syndicated.
They have massive relevant traffic to help sellers to reach out to potential buyers. Cars.com is well organized for easy browsing by potential buyers. All of their platforms have an extensive online footprint. Car postings on this platform have a far-reaching presence to be seen in far and wide places.
Car.com
You should not confuse the site with cars.com as described above. Car.com is yet another reputable digital car marketing platform. They also have been in the game way longer than many average platforms with high site traffic of potential buyers.
Car.com also is part of the autobyle.com family of digital marketing platforms which includes
If you are priced right this site will push your car right at the customers’ faces daily. Their research arm will be able to advise you accordingly regards the trends and pricing range of your own car.
Craigslist
Craigslist is one of the most popular digital marketing platforms for all kinds of goods. The platform is regarded by many as a consumer bargain zone for a wide range of products. Bargain sites come with their own unique disadvantages that you need to be aware of:
- Unmotivated buyers
- Potential scammers posing as buyers
- The possibility of having to over moderate your price to fit the ‘bargain range’
- Stiff competition with many unrelated products just to be at the eyes view of potential customers.
Like Facebook Market Place, however, the sheer market size and popularity of the platform is not easy to bit. While the competition can be fierce especially so with products you may have little or no knowledge of; you however can’t bit the ‘walk past’ traffic. It is difficult though to develop an effective structured competition strategy for such a wide range of products in many cases.
As mentioned earlier when looking at the Facebook Market Place, because this is not a specialized space you could push your merchandise above the competition by giving detailed specs and posting high-quality images. This could be just that difference between your posts and the rest of the market players to turn the ‘walk past’ traffic into a community of potential customers.
Conclusion
Country-Specific Top Car Selling Sites
The platforms covered above have a global footprint but there are several others that are peculiar to individual countries. Some of them will obviously have more advantages than some of the global platforms. It is up to an entrepreneur to choose what best suits them. These country-specific top car selling sites may actually be common and popular in motivating target markets. Here are some few country-specific top car selling sites:
Carsales.com in Australia
Cars.co.za in South Africa
Droom in India
Carswitch in UAE
Autotrader.ca in Canada
Platform Test Run
It up to the entrepreneur to make a thorough and careful study of which platform top car selling sites will best suit their target market. The ideal approach would be to run a test exercise on several of these platforms; say ten for starters then streamline them to a maximum of five or so.
Running with more than just one platform gives you a wider range of potential customers. Having a manageable number of them will also help in horning down your knowledge of the chosen platforms. Subsequently, you can develop tailor-made marketing strategies for the chosen platforms. It becomes easy to track trends and other relevant statistics for the development of the said strategy.
I do hope you’ll get top car selling sites for marketing your car in pursuit of your car flipping business. Please do leave a comment on the article and your own experience in identifying the relevant marketing media especially for those in the car flipping business. Don’t forget to check out our latest product offers at our store to get those sleek accessories to optimize your sale.