Advertising Your Car For Sale

What paper work will I need to sell my car?

When selling your car, as far as paper work goes, a lot of what you need varies from state to state. In essence, you'll need to make sure you have the actual registration paper, or what's often known as the pink slip as this starts the process of registering the vehicle to the new vehicle's owner.

Where should I advertise to sell my car?

In order to advertise your car when you're getting ready to sell, traditionally, people have gone to the newspaper classifieds and posted it there, knowing that a lot of buyers were using that as a good resource. In the new world, the internet is the classifieds for car buyers. Sites like Auto Trader, which charge a small fee for posting your vehicle with photographs and a small description, or other sites like Craig's List, where for no charge you are allowed to put photographs and a small description; it gets the vehicle out to the right person because the person looking up that particular vehicle is going to have your car in mind already. If they're looking for a red Honda, they're going to type that into the search criteria. Hopefully you've written your vehicle up so that it's delivered to the person for their consideration right away.

What do I say in the ad to sell my car?

When you come to selling your car and knowing what to say in the actual ad, I think it allows all of us to put our marketing hats on a little bit, and actually look to sell the vehicle. In the ad you want to make sure you have a good description of the vehicle, an honest description. If you've made any modifications to the vehicle, you want to make sure you highlight those in the ad. You also want to be honest about its condition, because if you put in your description that the vehicle looks brand new, like it's been garaged every day and barely driven, and then the person takes the effort to come and see the vehicle with scratches and pits on, then you're going to lose that value of trust in the sales process. This value of trust in the sales process is something you're going to need when you go to actually negotiate the price. So, there's part salesmanship and part honesty, and somewhere in there is probably the best description of the vehicle. Also, you want to make sure you take very good representative photographs, which you're going to use in the online advertising. You want to get the vehicle from different angles, interior shots, show that you've endeavoured to take care of the car as best you can and such so the person who's buying the vehicle from you is not taking a huge financial risk.

What personal information should I include in the car ad?

When selling your car, as far as your personal information and contact information for the ad goes, it's probably best to provide a cell phone number and an email address. You don't want to automatically provide your personal address, home address or home phone number, because you are really posting that out to the public. You want to make sure that you are protecting your privacy.

Should I include "or best offer" in my car ad?

If you are selling your vehicle and you're putting the price out there, if you put "or best offer" then people are going to identify that you have some flexibility in the price. If, however, you don't put "or best offer" because you know what price you want for the vehicle and you're going to be solid on that, then don't put it down, otherwise you're going to be exposing yourself to an uncomfortable negotiation process. So, only put “or best offer" down if you really recognize that you're up for accepting other peoples offers.