Writing a used vehicle listing that gets enquiries worth answering

A good used vehicle listing answers the questions a buyer would otherwise ring to ask. What does it look like all round? How many kilometres has it really done? What is wrong with it? Whose name are the papers in? Put those answers in the photos and the first three lines. You may get fewer calls than a vague listing draws, but more of them come from people who can reach your lot and have accepted the vehicle as shown.

What does a weak listing cost you?

Take an invented dealer in Nagpur with a four-year-old hatchback. The listing has six photos taken at dusk, and the text reads "single owner, well maintained, call for price". Forty people ring. Thirty-odd ask "last price?" before anything else. A few ask for photos that should have been posted. Two turn up and walk straight to a scratch on the rear bumper that nobody mentioned.

The staff spend the day answering the same question forty times. The listing did not filter anyone, so the filtering happened on the phone, at the cost of the salesperson's time. If the portal leads reach you slowly, see how used car dealers answer portal enquiries faster; this post is about what makes the enquiry worth answering in the first place.

The photo shot list

Shoot in daylight, on a clean spot, with the vehicle washed. Phone cameras are good enough. A background of other cars and bikes tells the buyer nothing and distracts from the one you are selling.

1. Front three-quarter, from the driver's side, whole vehicle in frame.
2. Rear three-quarter from the opposite side.
3. Straight side profile on both sides.
4. Dashboard with the engine on, so warning lights, if any, show.
5. Odometer, close up, readable.
6. Front seats and rear seats, including the mat condition.
7. Boot or underseat storage, open.
8. Engine bay, or for a bike the engine and chain side.
9. All four tyres, or both for a bike, with the tread visible.
10. Every dent, scratch or repair, each with its own photo and a coin or hand beside it for scale.

Photo ten is easy to skip, and it is where a serious buyer can decide you are straight.

What goes in the description?

Write it as a short block that a person can read on a phone without scrolling twice. This layout works for cars and bikes alike.

Keep a plain tone. "Showroom condition" and "must see" say nothing. "Seat fabric has a small stain on the rear left, photo 6" says something, and buyers believe the rest of the listing because of it.

How honest should the condition note be?

More honest than feels comfortable, though not a full confession. A rule that works: any flaw visible to a buyer within five minutes on the lot goes in the listing with a photo. A flaw you know about but a buyer cannot see, such as a past accident repair or a replaced part, you tell them at the lot, before price talk starts.

This costs you a few buyers. They are the ones who would have found the problem after delivery and come back angry. If you do not know a vehicle's history, say where you bought it, at auction or as a trade-in. Then offer the buyer an independent inspection of their choice.

Which papers should you state up front?

State the ones that decide whether the sale can happen at all. A buyer who is borrowing needs to know if the car has a loan against it. One who plans to move the registration to another state needs to know early.

• Whose name the registration stands in, and whether the seller is the first, second or third owner.
• Whether a loan is running and will be closed before transfer.
• Insurance status and whether the previous owner's claim record is clean.
• The service book and any bills you hold.

Check transfer, loan release and inter-state movement with your RTO agent or adviser, and do not describe a procedure in the listing as settled if you are not sure of it.

Which enquiries is the listing meant to draw?

A listing is working when the calls sound like this: "I saw the bumper in photo ten; can I come on Saturday?" It is not working when callers mostly ask for the last price or for a video of the engine. Count a week of calls in a notebook, marking each as a visit request, a price-only call or a question the listing should have answered. Rewrite the listing around the third kind: every question it should have answered is a missing line or photo.

Skip the "call for best price" habit even if a rival uses it. If you keep a gap between asking price and what you will accept, say "price open to discussion after you see the car" and leave it there.

Start with the oldest vehicle on the lot

Reshoot it against the list above and rewrite the six lines. Then compare the calls it draws with the calls it drew last month. A vehicle that has sat for weeks has least to lose from a better listing.

If your own site should carry the same layout, that is a landing page job, and it suits any automotive dealer with used stock. When you want that built, tell us what you need.