Autotrader, Pistonheads and Ebay - Tips for successfully selling your car
Recently I decided it was time to sell my weekend car. Bought as an investment in July 2005, the Volkswagen Golf 25th Anniversary GTI proved to be one of the best cars I've owned ( and my third Golf so far). Due to the limited production run and seeming rarity of Tornado Red models, I was expecting the car to be sold within a matter of weeks. Instead, it turned out to be a bit of a slog, taking well over two months to sell. I had used the more traditional methods of selling without much luck, so over the two months I formulated a system that would help channel people to one source. It proved successful so I've decided to share the tips!
In a nutshell it relies of channeling your audience to one source, through the use of crude links within other ads. The main point you want people to reach is Ebay. But instead of using an auction, use Ebay's Classified Advert feature. This still enables the freedom to have a large listing,
lots of pictures and description but not have to deal with the sometimes unpredictable nature of auctioning a car.
For my listing, I used a simple HTML table with clickable
thumbnails etc. Remember, people love to click, view and see. Once you're happy with the listing, submit it. Now the fun bit! Head back over to your Ebay listing, grab the URL from the address bar and use tinyurl to create a short link to your ebay ad. Once created, it will look something like http://tinyurl.com/y87lzy. Then create a cut down version of your advert
on both Autotrader (chargable) and Pistonheads (free) - and simply copy-paste the link
into both afore mentioned advert editors.
Note: Autotrder will not allow hot linking in their ads, due to placing a full stop of every url string (clever aren't they!), but the presence of 'http://' within an advert surely must encourage clued up users to copy the link? Pistonheads allows you to specify a website link within the advert, and as a separate link in the advert summary, so both will show as clickable links.
Using this method I gained over 1000 views in a month (you use Ebay's hit counter to meter your hits - crude I know). The reason I can say for sure this worked? I implemented this system on my second Ebay Classified ad, while the first time round I simply constructed ads on each system and left it at that - no linking. My first Ebay listing managed a not so bad 400 odd hits, but my second ad rocketed in hits.
As Autotrader and Pistonheads don't offer much in the way of stats, this was a distinct advantage. Maybe this should be one thing both services should offer, as I believe Ebay are really stealing the show at the moment offering such a wide array of services.
It's worth noting that Pistonheads is a free to use service and
does allow you to upload 6 photos, while Autotrader and Ebay both charge
for listings, and in the case of Ebay, can also charge for photo hosting. A good tip to lower the cost of advertising on Autotrader is to select web only advertising as well, regional magazines can only target a small proportion of the population, and with most people prepared to travel to find a car these days, the £15 (or there abouts) charge for having a small ad in the magazine, isn't really worth it IMO.
Try it out!
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