Auto buying service

[Snake]

I've negotiated houses down to 60% of retail and lost million dollar deals as well so cars are a cake walk for me. IMO this is a tough sell for median income people. I would in my opinion focus on high end cars. Rich People love to brag and getting them a deal on a BMW M6 twin turbo vs getting someone a deal on a Honda civic SE is totally different when you charge 300 to 500. Your selling your negotiating skills so best sell them to the people who can afford you. 

[panther4life]

6 hours ago, Snake said:

I've negotiated houses down to 60% of retail and lost million dollar deals as well so cars are a cake walk for me. IMO this is a tough sell for median income people. I would in my opinion focus on high end cars. Rich People love to brag and getting them a deal on a BMW M6 twin turbo vs getting someone a deal on a Honda civic SE is totally different when you charge 300 to 500. Your selling your negotiating skills so best sell them to the people who can afford you. 

Thanks for the response.  I’m thankful for al of the feedback and it helps me find holes in the idea.  I feel 1000% convinced it’s a service than only small % of car buyers would utilize, but just capturing even a small percentage of the market would work for my goals.  The aim is to become my own boss and live comfortably. 

That’s being said, I  feel like if the service was solely a negotiating role then it would not be a worthy service. 

I think the value would come in from my knowledge and ability to consult. Simplifying the process, adding piece of mind that you’re making a sound logical decision and have someone help look after you from all angles. 

I think the target audience would be anyone who wanted to save time and stress, with the money I save them on the deal more than covering whatever they pay me. The point it is to help you ways above and beyond just getting a good deal, helping you find the right car at the price and saving you time and stress in the process. 

Could end up being a terrible idea that is a complete bust but one that would virtually cost me 0 overhead other than marketing, so may be worth the risk. 

[Anybodyhome]

I'd certainly give you the opportunity to show me how much money you can save me, as I'm sure many other people would as well. I've been buying my own cars for almost 45 years now and it never gets any better. I trust no one in the dealership, I feel like I've done my homework and nobody knows my financial situation better than me. But that's probably also my biggest downfall as well. I have the money/buying power to get whatever I want and I know I'm probably leaving money on the table just to get the whole thing over with.

And I think you're selling yourself short. I used to do real estate home inspections for prospective buyers, which is not that far removed from what you're wanting to do. I charged based on the square footage of the house because the size of the house will definitely effect the amount of time the inspection takes. I charged anywhere from $350-600 per inspection, and the average inspection took about 2-3 hours on the site and another 2 hours compiling photos and citing specific code references put into a presentation folder hard copy for the home buyer. I wouldn't have a problem with $400-500 if you could show me how much money you saved me.

I think that will be your biggest challenge- show me in black and white how much money you saved me if I would have done it myself.  

 

[SmokinwithWilly]

It might help also to do a breakdown via price category. Show someone how much you can save them, like on average, $1500 on a 25k car or $6k on a 60k vehicle. I'm self employed and I love people who decide they are going to do it themselves to save some extra money only to get called a couple months later when it doesn't work. They don't want to pay a consult fee and end up spending 3 -4x as much for me to come fix it all. If I have to spend 500 bucks to save $5500 I'm all over that. The simple fact is, I don't know the industry as well, and like you said, I could get taken to the cleaners while I think I'm winning. I see this as something you could make a pretty good living at

[LinvilleGorge]

I actually looked into a couple of brokerage services a few years ago when looking to buy. At least around here, what I found was that they were of no use to me. They wanted me to spend top of the market value for them to find the perfect truck for me. Why? If I'm willing to pay top of the market value, there's no shortage of options. I ended up buying said truck that checked all my boxes for over $5k less than what they were telling me I would have to spend.

IMO, the value of a brokerage deal comes into play when you're looking for a very specific vehicle or a very specific set of parameters that greatly reduces your available options on the market. For the typical person looking for a relatively typical vehicle, it's going to be difficult to offer a value added service when they can hop on CarGurus or AutoTrader and find 50+ vehicles within a 50 mile radius that for what they're looking for. The customer is wanting to get the best deal possible while you're also looking to get paid. These are two competing interests. Maybe there is a market for people who really hate the car buying experience, but I'm not seeing a big market for this service for the typical person looking for the typical vehicle.