To Ship or Not To Ship, That Is The Question

With 90% of new and used vehicle shoppers looking for the perfect car on the Internet your potential customer base just got a whole lot bigger (or smaller). 

Bigger if you decide to sell to everyone that's interested, Smaller if you choose to sell just locally.

I've had many of my dealers tell me they don't even respond to bidders on eBay, or emails from people in another state.  THAT'S CRAZY!  Ask yourself this; did you display the name and location of your dealership on the listing?  Of course you did.  So it stands to reason that the customer is willing to buy out-of-state, why aren't you willing to sell out-of-state?

Let's take the mystery and fear out of shipping a vehicle to a customer across the country. Some simple research will tell you exactly what your responsibility is in your state for tax and title, there are also several services that will handle everything for you.  Plus most DMS software will calculate taxes for any zip code and know if there is city, county, etc.

There are also several shipping companies that specialize in autos, heck, you can even use FedEx or UPS.  And for convenience; the shipping charges can be financed into the car deal (line 3) item.  You can even mark it up like sublet and make some money!

To protect yourself from shipping incidents (while rare), take these simple steps, they'll boost your feedback (CSI) ratings too;

• Take pictures of the car being loaded into the shipper and email them to the customer with a message like "here's your car on the way to it's new home".
• make sure the driver sees you take the photos so he knows there is a record of the condition of the vehicle when it left the dealership.
• Leave a Visa gift card in the car with a note to the customer to get the car detailed on you.

If anything happens during shipping the shipper is responsible, but assure the customer you will handle the details of any repairs.

One last thing; make sure you disclose all your "selling out-of-state" requirements, and shipping policies in each listing - build it into your template.  Some of eBay Motors top sellers include a map of the North America in their listing with 'dots' for all the places they sell to instill confidence in potential buyers, it works!  You could even add a video.

Don't fear the out-of-state buyer, that's your new customer, and they'll tell 2 friends, and they'll tell 2 friends, and so on...