Many thanks for the straightforward advice, and great to see this boards heavy hitters coming out for my first post 
Quick aside, after being a part of web forums (and before those in the bulletin boards @ 14.4k, remember BBS?) for 20 years I am impressed at this community, both as a lurker and now poster. One day I promise to give back when I'm not as green.
Summary responses to your excellent ideas and some more background for further discussion:
Joe: My thoughts exactly for telling my personal story and branding the dealer from day one, it is good to hear specific guidance. On your advice I will further work my passion and story into the promo and explanatory videos that I have been scripting out with the local video startup. They and I have some cool ideas involving planes and cars.
Better is to hear that my model doesn't sound off the wall since I wasn't able to find anyone doing it well: my business plan says something like "this specific niche is either not a good business space or has some other barriers to entry unknown at this time." Much like you I am data driven so a perspective on the overall model I treat as a plus vs. a random hunch that it might work (The Lean Startup view). My pricing so far is driven from a large spreadsheet I compiled with a goal to always be below the bottom 25% national pricing for a specific trim and lowest in local area (200 miles?) for comparable clean car.
As far as funding, I am luckier in that front with current sources and room for investor growth with a "proven" beta model. That should help to tackle the issue of scaling with continued cash inventory purchases and get me more into the realm of "dealer" and away from 2+ car broker, which is self funded.
What cars do you see as right for eBay? I have done as much reading on here on ebay best practices and my similar space large inventory competition are doing ebay well.
Doug: Several elements of that model seem to parallel my plan, I want to decrease reputational risk/overhead to start by sourcing cars w/ remaining factory warranty and in the 1-2 year low mile sweet spot that only need wear items and light cosmetics. A great example is one I currently have for sale in a '13 Grand Sport Corvette that was certified with no extra costs with only 9k miles.
Eric and Craig: On the whole I can't disagree with any of your thoughts and enjoy hearing more about vendor packages and selling. I understand they will sell you as much as you "need" yet have had an excellent experience w/ the two I have been in touch with so far in not overselling.
For more background, the main reason I am seeking a one stop, ground up package is because I do not intend to stay in the 2-4 car range for long, just for the completion of my alpha pilot for 1-2 more months as I lease/buy a space for this and my other business. All of my pictures, detailing, listing, etc are done by me for now and I agree can continue w/ low inventory. Depending on my fund raising abilities (as always), I anticipate to rapidly scale in increments of 9 cars at a time as I fund the rest of the business; I anticipate inventory of around 18+ by years end and staying staff lean. Now I understand I probably wont get to 36-50 cars in a vendor contract year, but my main fear is spending more time attempting to cobble together solutions such as a wordpress template site (I have just recently built one w/ my startup team and it took twice as long as it should have to look barely good) and supporting products that do not have the auto specific optimization, fit/finish, front and back end usability that an (admittedly) overpriced vendor solution would have, especially when peddling high dollar cars to discerning buyers as a new brand. I plan to use Wordpress for my blog and continue to wish I could code
Bottom line as I see it: Chicken or the egg on all of this: up front investment to fit in with the expected highline service level or compete to grow on something like price w/ low overhead? Great thoughts on C/L and ebay and PPC, which I have some experience with and am looking for the auto industry specific best practices as I am running my own optimization experiments. Everyone can agree the money can get away from you!
Yago: I have learned you certainly know c/l from reading here. What do you think is a good c/l tool? Are they dead with the ghosting and manual the way to go, especially while small? Thoughts on ebay local classifieds?
Victor: Thanks, I am still in the reserves but it's going to be more boring than flying. I agree with inventory and that is something that I have always wanted to center on, if nothing else because I know the niche and know it is a popular one. Who doesn't like the M3 haha. However, I know I need to get more educated on popularity and scarcity and getting inventory that will move fast, as inventory turn time is one of the metrics I want to optimize.
I like your ideas about just using the listing tools and marketing, however it comes back to my brand appearing legitimate to higher end buyers without a good landing page, which I addressed above in other options. I understand the best auto vendor pages can handle listing and site easy uploading, is auto shopper optimized through above the fold CTA, A/B testing, etc. I think there is value in having two sources of lead generation, from a auto specific site and the listing sites. Yet I don't know if I want to pay monthly for it now. Perhaps holding off as an experiment but that is about what I am doing now in my current partnership, with less than stellar results.
Looking forward to your advice.
Regards,
Glen
