From: ecrjbruce@economics.adelaide.edu.au
Newsgroups: misc.entrepreneurs
Subject: Re: Finding Used Car Buyers
Date: 19 Aug 92 05:49:24 GMT
Organization: Economics, University of Adelaide

In article <DJOHNSON.92Aug14163210@mycroft.ti.com>, djohnson@ti.com (Doug Johnson) writes:
> 
> 
> How do you find people who are buying used cars?
> 
> We have a business that will inspect a car for a buyer.  For $80.00,
> we'll come out to driveway, dealer's lot, wherever, in a well
> equipped van with a certified professional mechanic, and inspect the
> car, search for recalls, estimate any repairs, and estimate value.
> 

We have a similar sort of service in Australia.  You can have the car
mechanically inspected by a mechanic for a fee (I am unsure of how much, it was
$40 Aus. 2 years ago).  You can also get a title from the Department of Motor
Vehicles (our registering authority) that the vehicle is free of finance. 
Value you would have to ask a friend who is n the know, so as far aas I can see
your service is a great idea.

It was marketed here through the car yards themselves and word of mouth of
satisfied customers.  Then several franchises started up and were advertising
very heavily - and became very successful.

Avenues to consider would be

1)  Approaching the dealers and doing several cars at a reduced rate.  They
thus have an independant evaluation of their merchandise.  You would need to be
careful about the legalties of this, over here it is a criminal offence if the
dealer tampers with such a report to present his car in a better light.  Make
sure that all POTENTIAL clients of the car yard (not everyone will buy the car
they first see) knows who did the inspection and stress that it is independant
and available for other lots if they wish to use you.  Thus if they go to a
private sale or a yard which does not use you then they may give you a call.

2)  Contact your Office of Fair Trading (or whatever consumer protection
society you have) and let them know who you are and what you are doing.  They
will probably want to check you out but will reccomend succh a service if they
are at all like they are over here in Australia.

3)  Vehicle clubs are anotheravenue toi get word of mouth spreading.  If you
were to put together an informative entertaining talk on the perils of buying
2nd hand vehicles, what to look for etc. they will turn up in droves.  They may
even promote your session in a bid to attract more members, thus doing some
advertising for you.  This means that you will be talking to interested people
in terms of cars who often get asked by their friends to "come along and have a
look at a car I'm considering buying...".  You've got no idea how many cars
I've crawled around for friends yet I have no qualifications and no legal
liability.  Your service would be vastly superior to this and for a vehicle of
any decent price is a sensible precaution.

4)  Do you have any consumer oriented shows?  We have one called "the
Investigators" which probes into ripoffs anf then offers solutions to avoid
such problems.  Given the number of car problems they deal with you should get
a decent lookin.

5)  Try sponsoring a sportingg club or two.  I sponsored a "Best and Fairest"
award for threeclubs and it introduced me to a lot of potential clients.  Young
people would seem to be a large part of your potential clientele and these same
people are the sort who join sporting clubs.  This gets you in front of the
potential clients and they will trust you because they will have some sort of
rapport with them.

Hope these help, I'll post more if I think of them,

regs

Rob