Have you ever wondered where your local car dealer gets their stock from? Well a certain amount of it comes from part exchanges of course, but most of the stock you see on the lot of your local dealer will have been purchased at wholesale prices from car an auction.
You may have thought these auctions were closed to the general public. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact some auctions positively encourage members of the public to attend and here’s the reason why.
An auction makes its money by adding commission to the sale price of the car. It’s based on a percentage of what the car makes. So the more the car brings in at auction the more commission an auctioneer makes.
You as a member of the general public can take advantage of this, because unlike a dealer you don’t need to make a profit. You’re likely to bid more for a car than a dealer is prepared to pay; this in turn increases the amount of commission an auctioneer makes.
Now some dealers aren’t particularly happy about this, as you can imagine. They are constantly lobbying auctioneers to have trade only sales, some auctioneers have relented and offer trade only auctions once a month, but this is just a token gesture to appease the dealers.
They are unlikely to prevent the general public from attending altogether for the reason stated above, but what do you care. This is an opportunity to beat the system, buy the car you want at a price just above wholesale.
There is another reason why car auctions are the best place to buy. Your local car lot will have a limited number of cars in stock, due to the amount of space they have available. Also they may only specialize in one type or make of car which severely restricts your choice.
Your local car auction has no such restrictions. At any given sale they’ll have many hundreds of cars available for you to choose from. You get the chance to view each car before it comes under the hammer. So this limits the chances of you buying a dud. If you’re after buying a specialist car like a Porsche or Mercedes keep a look out for specialist sales. These are usually held once a month and will have a much greater choice of these types of vehicle available than a standard sale.
When you take everything into account buying at auction really is a no brainer. You get a huge choice of vehicles, you can inspect each vehicle before the sale, and most importantly you get them at a little over wholesale price. Sometimes you may even get lucky and get the car of your dreams at a price well bellow wholesale price.
So what are you waiting for, beat the dealers at their own game and head on down to your local auction today. Just make sure you do your homework first and establish what kind of car you’re looking for and what you’re prepared to pay for it.
