Why do customers choose certain cars over others? Well that is certainly the $64,000 question and if we knew the definitive answer we could probably sell the formula for a lot of money. In the car trade there is one thing we can be sure of and that is if we have a car with what we call a unique selling point we can be fairly confident that the car will sell, not necessarily for what we mark it up for but certainly for a decent profit.
We often use the phrase ‘a nice car always sells’ and this has always generally been the case and buyers looking to spend a certain amount of money on a specific car will often compare several different models at many different vendor sources before finding ‘the one’.
This can often exasperate the seller ho has done everything in his power to ensure the car was presented properly and yet still some customers pass it over in favour of another visit for yet more viewings of similar models.
The unique selling points (USP’s) for many customers looking at changing cars will almost exclusively be price; if it’s cheap they will buy no matter what make or model. Although there are clearly many other unique selling points that will appeal to a wide range of buyers i.e. best in class, low mileage, fantastic pedigree, lovingly polished, highly specified, unique colour, limited edition and so on, the point is used cars are always unique. These selling points differ from new cars in that it becomes much more about the brand, the perception, the budget and the location as well as the service and warranty.
The other interesting thing is that as the internet plays an ever greater role in the successful marketing of cars, USP’s can now be cars which years ago would be considered unsellable, i.e. loud colours, big engine petrol cars or even universally considered ugly cars (and we all know what they are).
With the internet that unwanted car only needs to have one person, however far away, to have an interest in it and it can be sold.
The fact is the market for cars is now national rather than local and therefore far more cars have a USP than ever before.
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