How Jack beat Motorway online car buyers by £1,500 after a customer waited 8 weeks for a higher “estimated” price
As an independent company, we are always compared against our competitors. We understand that you want to get the best price for your car, but also value your time and expect excellent customer service when choosing a company to sell your car to.
Mr Pallet was in the market to sell his 2016 Mercedes Benz ML and was exploring all options online. Now, the majority of car buying services see the used car at a similar price in line with car price guidelines. Sell Your Car 2 Jack offered £8,600 with no admin fees and same-day payment, however, the Motorway website offered an on-screen “Estimate Value” of £9,500.
Of course, Mr Pallet wanted to explore the higher price offered and even though we would pay the same day the additional £900 was too attractive to pass up and wanted to explore it further, this is where it gets interesting.
Mr Pallet had to upload over 60 photographs of the car, give a detailed description of the cars spec, options and condition – practically writing an advert for private sale, but still the £900 extra was still dangling so he took the time (2-3 hours over 2 days due to dark nights) and listed his car on the Motorway site. This listing was then sent out to other car buyers (like us) and car dealers but as previously mentioned the online price was too high to start with so there was no interest, yet Motorway still pursue the highest figure. They are “attempting” to get this price but they are not the people that buy the car they are simply a broker trying to find a buyer.
There are many online car buyers, but they aren’t all the same
As part of our customer experience journey we keep in contact with our customers over the phone and kept in touch with Mr Pallet to see how his sale was progressing and after 3 weeks there was still no £9,500 on the table or even a sign of anyone arranging to come and see the car. We advised that the value of his car had receded slightly but only by £170 so he wanted to continue to try for the £9,500 for obvious reasons.
In week 5, Mr Pallet got hold of Motorway to ask them when it would be sold and they said we are going reduce the asking price to £9,000 as the market has changed to which Mr Pallet agreed and lowered the price – still it was £400-500 more than we were offering and he had already taken the time to add the photos and description, so why not.
6 weeks after his first listing with Motorway, he had a trade buyer connect and arrange a time to come and see the car, well this is where it’s not all as it seemed. The trader from 2 hours away turned up to buy the car and said he couldn’t give £9,000 due the condition is not as expected even though everything was detailed on the listing and made an offer of £6,300, then to £6,500 as he wanted to take it there and then to which Mr Pallet declined.
After his poor experience he called one of our car buyers at Sell Your Car 2 Jack and asked for a revised figure which was now £8,270 from the original £8,600 as 6 weeks worth of depreciation resulted in the lower figure – he booked the appointment the same day, we gave him £8,000 as it was due a service and required 2 tyres replace – money was transferred immediately and was done in 30 minutes.
Had Mr Pallet sold to us on the same day he got his value we would have paid £8,330 so essentially waiting for Motorway on their over inflated price to result in no sale actually cost him £330 plus a lot of time and hassle.
Approach Sell your car 2 Jack for the best price for your used car
If you want a hassle free, easy way to sell your car, we promise to do exactly what we say – get a completely free online valuation here and let Jack and his sales team help you through the process of selling your car.