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Buying or Selling Cars Online
Many people often see the job of buying or selling a car at a dealership as an extremely stressful and intimidating process. Being able to purchase or sell a car online is becoming a more widely available method for today's consumer. These people see that buying online can rid of the pressures from the direct sales person and leave them happy with the purchase they have made.
Buying a car online has many advantages:
- There is more choice available to the consumer.
- The prices are often lower.
- Service is seen to be much more efficient and pleasant.
- The car is delivered to your door.
Selling a car online has the advantages of:
- Less face to face contact with potential buyers
- Easier to give the buyer a better idea of what the car looks like
- Gain more profit than going through a dealer.
However, there are some things to look out for when buying or selling any car online and in particular a used car. There is a large element of trust that lies between you and the online salesperson, far more than in an offline deal. The opportunity to be able to check the car is limited to pictures and written evidence from the seller. These can be deceiving.
When buying a used car in general, one must check for certain things before considering the sale. These include;
- Service History
- HPI checks
- Validity of Tax and MOT Testing
- Warranty
- Condition of Body Work
- Cost of and availability of parts for that model
- Mileage - are there any contradictions with past readings
- Full UK Specification
The above checks and documentation should also be fully available from you the seller in an online deal. It looks much more professional if these documents are to hand.
The above are just a few of the items that need to be checked when making such an important purchase. As you can see all of these things cannot always be reliably sourced over the Internet. Even if the price is cheap you will not save in the long run if professional checks have not been performed on the car. So, again the purchase or sale has to take be taken offline for part of the duration in order for these checks to be made.
There is no difference in the time spent making such checks with an on or offline purchase/sale as the same routes should be followed. However, the one main difficulty will be the test drive. As it is an online purchase, the job to hand is somewhat impossible. This is where your own trust and judgement skills take over the decision process. One possibility is to, once having found the deal you want online and made the relevant checks is to agree to an immediate purchase after test driving the motor. Or you if you feel you have enough information from the relevant checks, go ahead with the purchase/sale.
You must make sure that you will be covered if the purchase is below the advertised standard and that the dealer will acknowledge and compensate this.
It is better to find your used car online and sell one through sites that;
- Are run by established and reputable companies
- Have a proven track record of selling quality used cars
- Offer prices upfront before taking your personal details.
- Or one that you instinctively feel trusting with.
Whether you are buying/selling on or offline, again the above criteria is important in the purchasing process.
In spite of the often inability to see the product in the flesh before the purchase is made, many consumers find buying/selling a used car online a much preferred method of facing the stressful process of buying/selling a car. Firstly for the fact that you do not have to deal with intimidating, pushy sales people that leave you wishing you had never left the house, let alone thought about the prospect of buying a car from them! And also the same goes for selling a car except this time they do not have to deal with us rude and indecisive customers face to face!