Why is this car dealer so good at selling on ebay?

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writtenstyle

newbie taking action
Nov 3, 2008
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I bought a car last night from a local dealership, and we were talking about their failed attempts at ebay. The manager showed me one of the dealers that are killing it on ebay, and he couldnt figure out how.

This is the ebay member: eBay Store - Texas Direct Auto: Luxury Car, Trucks, Small SUV

I have looked at their stats and auction formats, but I cant see what makes them so good, especially considering the neg feedback when you google their name.

Why is their system resulting in so many sales? It looks like they are moving 100 cars a month, and their prices are inline with other physical dealers.

I just dont see anything special that could be driving their sales. Anyway, it would be fun to figure out what they are doing that is resulting in them being a leader on ebay motors.
 


Zsaleem said:
They are using my marketing services, holy crap! Leave my client alone.
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Not sure if serious.

On a funny note. My local dealership tried to copy everything they could see them doing, even vacuuming the carpet in the exact same pattern.
 
They do it all. Finance, ship, warranty, buy-back guarantee, etc. Also, a lot of the other so-called dealers charge some mandatory bullshit $200 paperwork fee or some shit.

I'm sure eBay is showing them some extra love - dedicated account manager(s), etc.
 
writtenstyle said:
Not sure if serious.

On a funny note. My local dealership tried to copy everything they could see them doing, even vacuuming the carpet in the exact same pattern.
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Does your local dealership tried to get an Ebay account with thousands of positive feedbacks like my client?

Here's a tip I'd suggest for him to gather quick feedbacks. Ask him to start selling car accessories like speakers, keyring, tires, stereo for fucking cheap prices, either at no profit no loss or even at loss. After he has sold probably hundreds/thousands of accessories, he'll have enough reputation to sell cars. Online world is all about reputation. If texasdirect is selling a car for 50,000$, And your local dealership is selling same for 51,000$, Bet me customers will go to Texas Direct.
 
Having worked at a dealership who made a half ass attempt at selling inventory on ebay, I can say that you absolutely have to whore shit out at a huge loss to sell new car inventory on ebay. I'm talking selling for way back of invoice, less the holdback, any dealer cash etc. If you don't capture the financing end and make a couple points in rate, sell them a warranty, lo jack, security system or some other backend bullshit, then you don't even have a prayer of breaking even or making a small profit.

The only exception to this is on used cars and if you have a new car that is extremely difficult to find or is in very high demand.
 
I sold at dealerships too -- I agree with efeezy... another thing is inventory: the more units you sell the more you are allocated. It is soo much easier to sell a car or truck that you actually have, than to sell one that you have to have 'swapped in'.
 
efeezy said:
Having worked at a dealership who made a half ass attempt at selling inventory on ebay, I can say that you absolutely have to whore shit out at a huge loss to sell new car inventory on ebay. I'm talking selling for way back of invoice, less the holdback, any dealer cash etc. If you don't capture the financing end and make a couple points in rate, sell them a warranty, lo jack, security system or some other backend bullshit, then you don't even have a prayer of breaking even or making a small profit.

The only exception to this is on used cars and if you have a new car that is extremely difficult to find or is in very high demand.
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My local dealership was trying this with used cars. I think their problem was that they were just not listing enough vehicles, and the ones they had listed were local classified listings.

Maybe a little SEOing of the Ebay listings to maybe get indexed favorably by google would have helped them?
 
This seller is a "top rated seller" - eBay gives serious love to their top rated sellers in search results (when you search for anything on ebay you will see a little pop-up box recommending you filter out all the non-top rated sellers completely). It's a pain in the ass to sell anything on ebay when competing with sellers with this status nowadays.

This is the reason behind them moving so much inventory.

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/powerseller/welcome.html

writtenstyle said:
I bought a car last night from a local dealership, and we were talking about their failed attempts at ebay. The manager showed me one of the dealers that are killing it on ebay, and he couldnt figure out how.

This is the ebay member: eBay Store - Texas Direct Auto: Luxury Car, Trucks, Small SUV

I have looked at their stats and auction formats, but I cant see what makes them so good, especially considering the neg feedback when you google their name.

Why is their system resulting in so many sales? It looks like they are moving 100 cars a month, and their prices are inline with other physical dealers.

I just dont see anything special that could be driving their sales. Anyway, it would be fun to figure out what they are doing that is resulting in them being a leader on ebay motors.
Click to expand...
 
Honestly, it's probably because their all previous leases, rentals, or company owned cars their getting for dirt cheap. I don't have to time to doublecheck this, but I'll bet on it. If their doing newer-nicer cars then it's def so. Good luck stealing their source, hook up with an enterprise/avis, maybe that'll help.
 
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