Somewhere in the U.S. (let’s say Columbus) someone’s looking to buy a car. They’re researching makes and models, dissecting their budget, and doing all the things that consumers do in order to feel empowered. The result? They decide to look into pre-owned cars, both in terms of better fitting their budget, but also because it’s simply a prudent choice.
Choosing Pre-Owned
We’ve all heard it before: a new vehicle loses value the second it’s driven off the driver’s lot. The statistic is actually true, equating to approximately 11% decrease in value. If you were to pay $30,000 for a brand-new car, it’s worth less than $27,000 within seconds of climbing behind the wheel.
After a year of driving, that car is now worth less than $23,000. And after three years, it’s worth closer to $16,200. The decision to buy a three-year-old pre-owned vehicle empowers you to avoid that massive drop in depreciation. Letting the first owner deal with that, you’re able to get more for your money.
So what now? Hop online and search Used Cars for Sale? Even if/when you find that perfect car, are you ready to make your way to the dealership and deal with the stresses it will bring? More importantly, should you have to?
Singing the Dealership Blues
There may be few experiences less pleasurable than enduring the process of working with a car dealership. Even if you have the luxury of working with a credible dealer, you can easily find yourself disappointed, be it by limitations in inventory, pricing, lack of financing options or overall service.
If I decide I want to go buy a new television. I do the research, I go to the store, and I buy the television. Simple. Granted, there’s a significant price difference between electronics and automobiles, but the point remains. In an Amazon Prime kind of world, why does car buying remain such a cumbersome task?
Click. Swipe. Drive?
We live in an Amazon world; a magical place where (from the comfort of our laptop, tablet or phone) we can arrange to have anything we want to be delivered right to our door. Considering how busy our 24/7 lives have become, services like Amazon allow us to sidestep the hassles of shopping.
Whether for daily needs, or holiday buying, we can do everything with ease. This has even extended to the kind of sight-unseen shopping we would never expect, such as grocery delivery and subscription meal services with fresh produce. In the past, we never would have imagined a world where we weren’t personally inspecting a melon for ripeness, or a butcher’s cut to make sure that it was what we wanted. But, the online industry evolved with those very concerns in mind and built itself on a foundation of assurances.
But Can It Work For Car-Buying?
Ultimately, the answer is yes…but the condition, is that we must adapt how we view automotive consumerism, just as we did with every other type of buying. As a society, we have evolved to value convenience above most things. With lives and schedules that can be unrelenting in terms of demand, any service that eliminates stress (of any kind) holds value.
So, if an automotive equivalent of these services were to arise it would require built-in assurances to take the place of test drives, and under-hood inspections. It would have to be incentivized so that the value was clear: pricing advantages, warranties, free services, and guarantees as to satisfaction (and recourse in the event that the buyer is not satisfied). Surely, if there was such a service in existence, we would all know about it, right?
Not Necessarily
You can buy steaks at the store, or you can order them from Omaha Steaks. No-one cares either way, but there is a lot to be lost by dealerships if people were to begin buying their vehicles online. While some dealers have a strong online presence, most are still behind the curve.This is what makes an upstart like online.cars such a game-changer.
The value of online.cars comes from the fact that it embraces a similar philosophy to that of Amazon. Rather than following the traditional dealer mindset of wanting to sell you vehicles on a lot, online.cars wants to help you to buy the car that you actually want.
How Does online.cars Work?
Utilizing a nationwide network of dealers, online.cars is able to pull from a wider selection of vehicles than that is available to any individual dealership. And while this kind of extensive selection is what helps you to find the exact vehicle that you’re looking for, it’s how online.cars goes about it that seals the deal.
You just enter in the specifics of the vehicle that you’re looking for (make, model, year, trim, color) then you sit back and let online.cars do the work for you. No traversing dealer lots or withstanding high-pressure tactics. online.cars will find your vehicle, and offer it at $500 less than you’d find it at any dealership.
All online.cars vehicles are guaranteed to have a clear CarFAX vehicle history report and come with a Lifetime Mechanical Warranty. Vehicles are delivered anywhere in the continental U.S. Free of Charge and, should you decide that the truck isn’t the right fit within 3 Days or 150 miles, online.cars will help you to exchange it.
Guaranteed Financing
And those with challenged credit need not be afraid. Just as online.cars uses a nationwide network of dealerships to offer a massive selection, it partners with a nationwide network of lenders to guarantee financing to every one of their customers.
Imagine that: the ability to find the perfect vehicle, without having to worry about financing. The chance to sidestep the stresses and hassles of dealerships. The opportunity to be truly satisfied, by getting the truck you want faster, cheaper and easier.
It really can be as easy as Click. Swipe. Drive.
