Thanks For Ruining It For The Rest Of Us

[BillKVMotorCo]

Your years of sending customer's misleading e-mail blasts about wanting to buy their cars has made them completely numb to our efforts to actually buy their cars now. Here we actually really do need to buy their cars and they don't believe it for a second. We have tried putting it about everywhere that we can that we want to buy their cars. We have received nothing. Zilch. Nada. We even went as far as calling people who have their cars listed private party and they don't even consider it.

 

[Brian.Pate]

Your years of sending customer's misleading e-mail blasts about wanting to buy their cars has made them completely numb to our efforts to actually buy their cars now. Here we actually really do need to buy their cars and they don't believe it for a second. We have tried putting it about everywhere that we can that we want to buy their cars. We have received nothing. Zilch. Nada. We even went as far as calling people who have their cars listed private party and they don't even consider it.

Agreed 100%. We've had some success with google ad campaigns, automated CL posts, etc. Took some time to clearly communicate our buying intentions (quality, etc.) in the ads. Once we did, the conversions jumped. Getting past the "dealers low-ball everything" rep is the hard part. We've found that extreme transparency helps unravel the poor rep.

Sticking to these themes has helped us:

1) CarMax and some of the other large private buyers take 7+ days to issue payment.
2) Facebook is still time consuming and sketchy. CL is even sketchier.
3) Selling to friends and family is just bad business.
4) We do offer less than you'd probably get on the private market, but the time/hassle trade-off is well worth it. The price also accounts for any unknowns to ensure we can keep the business open. Some are great deals and some end up being duds...the lower-than-private market offer ensures it's worth our time (on average).

The $100 more than CarMax offer TODAY still works.

 

[Alexander Lau]

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

Funny, I just saw someone post this on our FB page. Sounds like maybe you took something that was said in jest way too seriously.

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

Really appreciate the insight. I like the approach that you are taking.

 

[Jason@nabthat]

Dealers tend to underestimate the power of their website as a merchandizing platform and look at other mediums such as email, SEM, facebook, paid search campaigns, display, etc. to reach customers with their messaging. This tends to have limited success because it is difficult to reach the specific target market you are after; each medium has their own unique flaws. You could, obviously, go after "buying centers" as a conquest (paid or display) such as CarMax, knowing that a high percentage of people looking to sell their car will search for this business.

We had a few dealers on our platform that decided to be conservative when it came to purchasing vehicles during the pandemic, leaving them with low inventory in a buying market (who knew). However, after implementing some tools to create awareness within their website, we were able to get one particular dealer from receiving 4 "buy your car" requests to over 40+ per month. Hence, never estimate the power of merchandizing and the features your website provider can enable for you.

Start putting on your e-commerce hat and start treating your inventory like content.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Your years of sending customer's misleading e-mail blasts about wanting to buy their cars has made them completely numb to our efforts to actually buy their cars now. Here we actually really do need to buy their cars and they don't believe it for a second. We have tried putting it about everywhere that we can that we want to buy their cars. We have received nothing. Zilch. Nada. We even went as far as calling people who have their cars listed private party and they don't even consider it.

I was saying EXACTLY this to the other managers here last week. For once we actually do need to acquire more vehicles from our previous customers but I doubt they believe it.

 

[Alex Snyder]

It is a bit more work, but you could pre-empt the engagement by sending a TradePending market report on their car. Take a guess at the miles, plop it into an email and send it. See if they respond.

 

[craigh]

It is a bit more work, but you could pre-empt the engagement by sending a TradePending market report on their car. Take a guess at the miles, plop it into an email and send it. See if they respond.

Different software, but we do this for service customers all the time. If their car is going on the hoist, might as well take a minute to appraise it.
If they need a big, expensive repair, maybe you can offer them a lifeline.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

It is a bit more work, but you could pre-empt the engagement by sending a TradePending market report on their car. Take a guess at the miles, plop it into an email and send it. See if they respond.

That's a great idea @Alex Snyder - I'm guessing it would be worth the effort.