A Motorhome Selling Idea

Jim

Jim

Ringleader
Joined
Jul 19, 2007
Posts
38,021
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Location
Sutton on Sea, UK
Funster No
1
MH
Adria Panel Van.
Exp
Since 1988
I know lots of people don't like selling motorhomes and find it rather stressful. Some buyers can be rude, some are professional hagglers, plenty are a combination of both. You get time wasting tyre kickers and your advert can attract all sorts of low-life.

Which is why agency selling is so popular, they come along offer you a price in isolation and if they sell they pay either an agreed sum or a percentage of what they get. You will get less for your van, but for plenty of you it is worth it. YOU WILL ALMOST ALWAYS GET A BETTER PRICE IF YOU SELL IT YOURSELF. However if you decide to go down the agency route, because you'd rather save yourself the hassle, I'm thinking there might be a better way.

So I have an outline of an idea.

I build a network of dealers, I'm thinking at least a dozen, but maybe 20. the more dealers in the network, the better the chance that one of them is looking for what you are selling and might be prepared to pay that little bit more for your van.

You want to sell, you properly describe the van, take lots of pictures and upload them to me here. The only personal details would be the town/city you are located in.

I then auction your van to this closed dealer network with the seller seeing the bids as they come in. With the the sellers agreement, the winning bidder would then get sellers details and then both seller and buyer can take it from there.

I'm thinking this should be a completlety free service to Funsters because I would charge the dealers a fee to be in the network or charge them a buyers fee.

Just sounding this out at the moment, what do you think?
 
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Sounds good to me Jim.

Why not add a % for the sale as well ( payable by the dealer from the sale price) ?
 
Chris said:
Sounds good to me Jim.

Why not add a % for the sale as well ( payable by the dealer from the sale price) ?
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Yes I would charge them a % of the sale or charge them to be in the dealer's club.

It would be a bit of work, but worth it, because I'm sure we could get them to pay a bit more for the seller.
 
I think it’s an excellent idea and removes the stress of selling privately whilst also minimises the power imbalance of a dealer dictating a price that the seller has to accept if going down that route.

Consideration needs to be given as to the liability for description. Sellers, not acting in the course of a business, have fewer legal constraints, will photograph and describe the van. The dealers buy ’blind’ so to speak and, as they’ll be selling on in the course of a business, the dealers will be taking the risk of the Consumer Protection Act.

So the dealers are going to want to ensure, as far as possible, that the description from the seller is accurate.

An excellent idea Jim, I‘m sure that with members’ input, any glitches can be overcome.

These are my initial thoughts.
 
Excellent idea 👍

I would guess the winning dealers bid will always have to be conditional on a viewing to verify the description is accurate - that is only fair and reasonable.
 
Jim said:
I know lots of people don't like selling motorhomes and find it rather stressful. Some buyers can be rude, some are professional hagglers, plenty are a combination of both. You get time wasting tyre kickers and your advert can attract all sorts of low-life.

Which is why agency selling is so popular, they come along offer you a price in isolation and if they sell they pay either an agreed sum or a percentage of what they get. You will get less for your van, but for plenty of you it is worth it. YOU WILL ALMOST ALWAYS GET A BETTER PRICE IF YOU SELL IT YOURSELF. However if you decide to go down the agency route, because you'd rather save yourself the hassle, I'm thinking there might be a better way.

So I have an outline of an idea.

I build a network of dealers, I'm thinking at least a dozen, but maybe 20. the more dealers in the network, the better the chance that one of them is looking for what you are selling and might be prepared to pay that little bit more for your van.

You want to sell, you properly describe the van, take lots of pictures and upload them to me here. The only personal details would be the town/city you are located in.

I then auction your van to this closed dealer network with the seller seeing the bids as they come in. With the the sellers agreement, the winning bidder would then get sellers details and then both seller and buyer can take it from there.

I'm thinking this should be a completlety free service to Funsters because I would charge the dealers a fee to be in the network or charge them a buyers fee.

Just sounding this out at the moment, what do you think?
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Great idea. We used Carwow to sell our car and they operate like this. Excellent scheme. Obviously sellers have to be honest, so I took lots of photos and described the few scratches etc and the oerson who came to inspect paid their negotiated price.

Unlike webuyanycar onviously..

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I like the idea of not having to deal with undesirable characters you might have to put up with otherwise. Seems a way of getting nearer what you want pricewise without the heavy involvement and dread.
 
I would certainly use the service it takes away all the hassle of a sale.
And
Likely to be a better deal than most PX.
 
Ingwe said:
I think it’s an excellent idea and removes the stress of selling privately whilst also minimises the power imbalance of a dealer dictating a price that the seller has to accept if going down that route.

Consideration needs to be given as to the liability for description. Sellers, not acting in the course of a business, have fewer legal constraints, will photograph and describe the van. The dealers buy ’blind’ so to speak and, as they’ll be selling on in the course of a business, the dealers will be taking the risk of the Consumer Protection Act.

So the dealers are going to want to ensure, as far as possible, that the description from the seller is accurate.

An excellent idea Jim, I‘m sure that with members’ input, any glitches can be overcome.

These are my initial thoughts.
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Perhaps there could be a refundable fee once van is sold to cover some of the wasted time and effort of dealer if van is misrepresented?

The dealer we boqught our van from had the previous day wasted a 250m round trip when they discovered the 3yr old van they'd travelled to inspect/buy had high damp readings.
 
Less likely to be effective when dealers have plenty of stock and less members of the public looking to spend their hard-earned. The market hasn't stabilised post-covid yet.

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I think it sounds like a good idea in principle. Obviously some fine detail to iron out but it’s got to be worth a try?
 
A great idea as sadly few dealers seem to be like one in Torquay who posts on here with a noble family background!
 
Sounds promising but I wonder if there would be enough vans that people would like to sell in this way to make it viable.
 
Doesn't the process already exist?

I want to sell my motorhome but don't want potential buyers knocking on my door ... Why don't I contact lots of dealers and see what they can offer?

Why not just have a list of 'approved dealers/buyers' that members can access and contact whoever they wish?

If it's a business model, then it seems to be a reasonable idea but would the effort be worth it? How would a dealer get on the list or be taken off? Is it worth potentially damaging the good name of this forum that you have built up and run in a fair and equitable manner?

The truth is, you own the forum, it's yours to take in whichever direction you choose. Asking people's opinions is a fine example of how you run the forum and long may it continue!!

My opinion is that it wouldn't enhance the forum and might make money for the forum but if the dealers didn't have to pay any commission, wouldn't that translate to more money via a higher offer for the seller, which is what we would all like to see.

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MisterB said:
The truth is, you own the forum, it's yours to take in whichever direction you choose.
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It’s not a direction to take the forum. rather it’s just another way of adding value for Funsters. Like all the separate parts of this place you can choose what you use or not.

Some love the classifieds we added, others don’t. It adds value to those who use it. but it doesn’t remove value if you don’t.
 
G
 
Sounds ok to me, will you have a cut off date for the age of a vehicle or a vintage section?
 
That’s pretty much exactly how Motorway.co.uk operates as the vehicle’s are only offered to dealers. We sold our last car through them and we were over the moon with the extra money we received over and above what the supplier of our new car was going to pay for our part exchange.
The process involved requires the seller to take multiple photographs of the vehicle. To this any defects that don’t show up on photos should be described accurately, eg minor stone chips. Motorway will then give you an indication of what the vehicle will realise at auction, In our case the car sold for £1500 more than the estimate, but it was in great condition with low miles, with full main dealer service history.
Some days later a driver/inspector came to collect our car, he spent two hours checking for additional faults or damage, he found several very light scratches which I polished out whilst he waited. The important point here is just like other similar company’s, if they find undisclosed damage the sum paid will be reduced.
As to whether this would be a successful or not, you will have to sound out your contacts, right now possibly.

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Sounds a good idea, certainly I have never felt confident in selling (or buying) privately and usually just accept the dealer px if it seems reasonable. This could certainly provide a better price with little effort.
 
Great idea Jim 👍 Problems I think may happen is that most dealers want to make 10 k on a sale and 5 k on a px. I have used MHDepot several times and they do everything for you IE advertising and showing the van to customers 👍 they give you what you ask for your van. No hassle at all. If you’re worried about how much they make on your van then it’s not for you, but if you know the value of your van you tell them how much you want and it’s up to them to sell it for more (their profit) as such it may be food for thought for how you set your buying / selling system up 😉
 
I'm not a seller of things, so would happily go down this route. I think it sounds a good idea.
 
Crazylegs said:
That’s pretty much exactly how Motorway.co.uk operates as the vehicle’s are only offered to dealers. We sold our last car through them and we were over the moon with the extra money we received over and above what the supplier of our new car was going to pay for our part exchange.
The process involved requires the seller to take multiple photographs of the vehicle. To this any defects that don’t show up on photos should be described accurately, eg minor stone chips. Motorway will then give you an indication of what the vehicle will realise at auction, In our case the car sold for £1500 more than the estimate, but it was in great condition with low miles, with full main dealer service history.
Some days later a driver/inspector came to collect our car, he spent two hours checking for additional faults or damage, he found several very light scratches which I polished out whilst he waited. The important point here is just like other similar company’s, if they find undisclosed damage the sum paid will be reduced.
As to whether this would be a successful or not, you will have to sound out your contacts, right now possibly.
Click to expand...
We did the same. Sold my car through Motorway. Got more than a trade price. Hassle free for me. Think it’s a good idea Jim Something similar would work for selling motorhomes.
 
Sadly the dealers will bid at trade prices and that can be £8K or more below retail and £6K below private sale figures for a mid range van. Much higher for premium and near new high range vans. For them to buy in at more than trade cuts deep into the profit margin that keeps their business afloat

Right now it's a sellers market with exceptional prices being reached. I doubt that will continue long and when those lockdown purchases hit the market and prices fall, the dealers will have a lot of excess stock. This idea will then be pretty much redundant

Obviously I am basing this on my knowledge of the market, having bought and sold vans as a side line for years. I retired from that a few years back but the figures are about right based on conversations I have had with dealers I know. People seem to assume all dealerships are rich, especially at the moment, but the second hand market is very fickle and the lack of vans coming in leads to reduced sales. They have to make as much as possible on every van to try to keep the lights on and the wage bill paid. I heard on the grapevine that a few have laid off some sales staff and valeters already this year.

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