Selling your old company cars – the choices
- Auction – quick, easy, and as long as the car is priced correctly, you’ll sell it. Fail, and you have to do the process again. But this time at a lower price.
- Private ads – you keep more money for the car (as long as it sells) – but it’s time consuming for a business. And there’s no gurantee it will sell.
- Trade deal – the car will go, but you’ll make less money.
- Online B2B small fleet buyer: you get offered a price – usually lower than a private sale, but it costs you less in time – and the money is in your bank quickly.
Another option is a private sale – either through the local classifieds or on websites such as ebay.
The trouble with this is that it can prove to be time consuming.
Why? Well, a detailed advert will have to be written in the first instance, photos have to be taken and uploaded and as well as the extra hours spent having to deal with ‘phone enquiries.
Then there is the stress of arranging to meet with prospective buyers, plus time-wasting tyre kickers and fielding offers.
Like the auction, there is no guarantee the car will sell the first week, meaning you might have to go through this process over and over again.
You’re a small business – you want the deal done and dusted.
A trade sale to a dealer is another option, but these values will generally be lower than what you could get from a private sale or auction. Also, main dealers usually buy on mileage and condition, so there is the added hassle of calling a selection of dealers to gauge interest in your car.
All this extra work is on top of business as usual activities for hard-working SME directors, and the car still might not sell!
As we are well aware from the catchy adverts, consumers have had another option of selling their cars to online companies who specialise in offering a quick and easy sale, via online websites. However, this service hasn’t been offered for the business to business market.
So far.
