There are numerous places to sell your van these days and it can be tough to know whether you’ll get a better deal selling it off to the local garage or going through one of the many online marketplaces.
We’ll show you the different options and places where you can sell your van in this handy guide.
Selling your van locally to a dealer
Probably one of the first considerations for anyone looking to sell their van, a local sale can be quick, easy and handled face-to-face with the dealer themselves. You’ll be able to get an appraisal on your van there and then, along with whether they’re interested in making a purchase. Sounds great, right? Well, there are a few drawbacks to popping down to the local garage with your van.
Firstly, you’re at the mercy of their decision. Unless you go between all the garages in your area for quotes, there’s little direct competition for your van, meaning they’ll probably offer a lower price as a result. It’s pretty typical of dealers to offer less money – online or offline – than a private buyer due to overheads and the need to resell the vehicle, but the local scale means that you could stand to lose even more in the process.
With that in mind, there is something to be said for the convenience factor. You probably won’t get a quicker sale than through a local garage, meaning that you can sell up and get the cash in a hassle-free process. Furthermore, you have a direct line of communication should you need it.
Selling online to a used van buyer
This has quickly become one of the more common ways to sell your van – it’s convenient, relatively risk-free and super easy to do.
There are a number of online van comparison sites available, and they’ll show you offers on your van from a number of trusted businesses. All you need is your registration and some basic information about the age and condition of your vehicle to get started. Of course, because you’re getting offers from a number of businesses at once (a fact they’re keenly aware of) you stand to get a better deal than a locally-based dealership. This definitely works in your favour and is one of the reasons why many people choose to sell their van online these days.
If you’re thinking about selling your van, try our online van valuation tool and see how much you could get.
Selling to a private van buyer locally
You can go about selling your van the old-fashioned way – throw up some local ads, stick a sign in the window of your van – and hope you get some traction.
It can still work, but you really are opening yourself up to a lot of hassle in the process. Whether it’s the additional legal paperwork you’ll need to sort to complete the sale or the risk of fraudulent behaviour from the buyer, you need to be extra careful to make a local private sale successful.
With all that said, there are some perks to handling your sale this way. You have more power to get the deal you’re looking for when selling privately whilst still selling below online buyer prices, resulting in you getting more money for your van and the buyer getting a cheaper deal too.
Selling your van online privately
It’s a similar process to a local private sale, just with the added work of listing your vehicle online in various locations and managing enquiries from that. It’s important to make sure you represent the vehicle as accurately as possible when selling through online marketplaces to avoid any issues when the buyers come to inspect the vehicle in person.
Again, you stand to get a better deal than selling to an online buyer, at the cost of the time and work investment, so make sure to weigh up your available options and what you’re aiming to get from the sale before making the decision.
