Concerns over price variance of used cars in online ads

Dubai / Emirates Business

SellAnyCar.com, the Middle East’s first and largest car buying service guaranteeing the purchase of any car within 30 minute, has released
new research indicating that the price variance in classified ads for
pre-owned car creates ambiguity
and lowers the rate of successful transactions.
The research is part of a SellAnyCar.com initiative to identify and address inefficiencies in conventional channels for buying and selling and used cars.
“A quick look at online classifieds will show 20 similar cars with a price variance of somewhere between 40-50%. This is very confusing for buyers, and for sellers too. They have no idea where to price, or how much to pay, for a fair transaction,” says SellAnyCar.com’s Founder and CEO Saygin Yalcin.
Yalcin says consumer behaviours turn this price discrepancy into an expectation mismatch. “When someone tries to sell a car on classifieds, they will look at the highest price of a comparable car and add another 1-2% to leave space for negotiation. However, when someone is trying to buy a car, they will filter for the lowest price of the desired car. This creates a gulf of expectations that results in frustration, false leads and time wasted for both buyer and seller,” he says.
SellAnyCar.com research also shows that meeting and conversing with potential buyers adds massively to the time and effort required for a successful transaction. “Most of
our respondents said that they would receive a reasonably high rate of calls from classifieds, but the quality wouldn’t be there. People would make unreasonable offers. Meeting potential buyers to show them the
car was also a massive hassle. We also found that the risks of letting strangers test drive your car was
a put-off for many sellers,” Yalcin
explains.
SellAnyCar.com also found that while respondents would feel comfortable selling their car back to official dealers, most sellers wouldn’t qualify for an equitable deal. “Our respondents indicate that selling back to the dealer only works for very new cars – one or two years old. Older vehicles usually aren’t considered or any car that doesn’t fit with the dealer’s brand strategy. Even when they are, the price can be quite low as the dealer looks to underwrite its expensive premises,” Yalcin notes.
Research respondents also cited a lack of knowledge about steps to effectively transfer car ownership as
a hurdle. SellAnyCar.com found that many sellers transfer car ownership without a proper legal contract,
leaving them at risk should the buyer not pay up.
“I made the mistake of not having a legal contract myself when I sold my car many years ago. I went to the RTA office, waited in line, and later figured out that I was lucky to have got
paid. I had no legal protection whatsoever, and could have done very little if the buyer had never paid me, or had paid me less than what we’d agreed to,” he says.
Not checking the dealer’s trade licence is a common occurrence among sellers – which again increases risk of fraud. “A dealer’s trade licence needs to be current, valid and needs to list “Used Car Trading” as a business activity. Dealing with fraudulent, wrongly licensed or unlicensed dealers can be risky. You might not get paid, or might retain legal liability for a car you’ve sold,” Yalcin says.
Other barriers to successful transactions include uncertainty over cars with outstanding loans, and the mechanisms to effectively transfer – or nullify – registrations, Salik accounts and insurance.
“Our recent research shows that buyers and sellers are still facing hurdles to transacting effectively in the used or pre-owned car space through conventional channels such as classified ads.
“These are the exact reasons that I founded the Middle East’s first car buying service. It was as a direct response to my own troubles selling my vehicle. In fact, SellAnyCar.com’s procedures were designed to target specific pain points in creating viable transactions,” Yalcin says.