Mistakes to Avoid When Listing Your Car For Sale Online

A car listing is a crucial element when you are setting up to sell your car online. The listing includes all the details of your old car, such as its condition, asking price, images, and more. Your online car listing is the first impression a potential buyer gets of your vehicle. In this blog, we get to learn what mistakes you should avoid to get maximum impressions on your car listing and get a better deal.
 

Avoid these Mistakes while Listing your Car Online for Sale

If your car listing has any mistakes, it can cost you time, effort and lose potential buyers’ interest. Let’s walk through the most common pitfalls and how to avoid them when selling your car online.

1. Poor-Quality Car Photos

In this age of images and videos, clear and high-resolution images of your car are a must-have. Bad quality photos, such as blurry, awkward angles, and bad lighting, can put off buyers. With lower attention spans in the age of social media, low-quality photos cannot gain the impressions you are looking for.

Car listings with multiple photos, showing different angles of your car, attract more potential buyers. Ensure the images you are planning are shot in daylight, have a clear background like an empty plot of land or a plain wall. Take photos of front, side, back, isometric shot, wheels & tyres, interior panels, odometer reading, infotainment, carpeting, and seats.

2. Incomplete or Vague Descriptions

Once a potential buyer is impressed with your car’s images, writing just “Good condition car” doesn’t tell much about the vehicle. People want complete details of the car, and without much detail, the gained attention becomes useless. A lost interest is difficult to gain back when there are thousands of used car listings all over the internet.

Here are the details that will deliver complete information about your car and make your listing stand apart:

• Make & model
• Variant
• Odometer reading
• Transmission
• Fuel type
• Age
• Service history
• Available documents
• Insurance validity

3. Setting an Unrealistic Price

Even with high-quality images and detailed information, potential buyers can reject your car listing if you have mentioned unrealistic price expectations. For example, if your old car is worth five lakhs and you are demanding seven lakhs for it, buyers will deter.

Therefore, you must mention a realistic price with a scope of negotiations with the potential buyers. To get an estimated value of your car, you can do market research, talk to various used car dealers, or check the value of your used car with a used car value calculator online.

4. Missing Contact Details or Delays in Response

Now you have listed your old car with good-quality images, complete details, and a realistic price, but you missed out on your contact information. How will potential buyers connect with you? This is among the common mistakes people make when listing their old vehicle online.

You cannot sell your car if a buyer cannot reach you, or you do not respond to their messages or phone calls. Hence, it is important to update your contact information and remember to attend calls or messages from potential buyers.

5. Not Keeping Documents Ready

You got calls and messages from various buyers and managed to shortlist a few for a visual inspection or test drive. However, you haven’t readied all the documents that buyers usually ask to check before finalising a deal. A buyer can back-off from closing a deal with you with you fail to produce all the documents of the vehicle.

The documents you need to keep handy are:

• Registration Certificate
• Pollution Under Control Certificate (PUCC)
• Insurance Policy
• Service History
• Inspection report

• Loan Closure NOC (if financed)

   

6. Ignoring the service history

As mentioned earlier, a service history is an important document for your car. It helps buyers to judge the overall maintenance and condition of the vehicle. Without a proper service history, buyers can drop the deal or ask you to reduce the price of the car.

To avoid any issues related to service history, keep all invoices for scheduled services, repairs, replacement invoices, battery change records, and warranty cards etc.

7. Skipping a Car Inspection Before Listing

If your car has a hidden issue and the buyer discovers it during a test drive, it reflects poorly on you, even if you didn’t know. Some buyers have a sharp eye and long experience of driving cars, which enables them to identify specific issues like suspension condition, engine noises, paintwork health, and rattling noises.

Therefore, having an inspection report with detailed information about minor problems in your car will bring trust and confidence. It is recommended to perform an used car inspection from trusted platform to get accurate valuation of your vehicle.

Do’s and Don’ts When Listing Your Car For Sale Online

Conclusion

Selling your car online can be smooth and rewarding only if you avoid all these common mistakes. Take your time to present your vehicle well, be honest about its condition, and stay ready with documents. All these essential steps will ensure that you get better deals and sell your car faster with less hassle and stress.