Exclude poor quality vehicles, says The Car People
Date:
10 February 2011
The Car People's sales and marketing director Jonathan Allbones gave delegates at the recent VRA conference a view "from the other side of the fence", with opinions from the used car supermarket's perspective.
Allbones, whose company sources vehicles from remarketing firms, called for companies disposing of vehicles to keep poor quality ones out of the marketplace. "I believe the ideal is to let the buyer understand the state of the car and buy unprepared, but if it's a poor-quality vehicle it needs to be refurbished as it will damage residual values of that model if the car goes through at a low price," he said. "It's really important to keep low-quality vehicles out of the marketplace - all they do is distress the product."
He also pointed to certain options and packs that can add value to a car. "With some options, the cost to buy is outweighed by the RV uplift," he said. "One example is the Chilli pack on a Mini Cooper S - it's expensive to buy but it's very hard to sell the car without it." Allbones' other tip was that silver isn't a colour retail customers are currently looking for, with black or grey proving more popular.
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