Does this business idea have any merit? Looking for flaws

The idea sounds great at first sight. It would require though a lot of investment to get traction on both the dealer and customer side, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done.

I would start with talking to a few car dealers and car owners who are about to trade in their car. And maybe also setting up a fake squezee page and drive some paid traffic to it to see the reactions. (lean startup method)
e.g. without any partners quickly set up a site telling people that they can look for better deals with your site, they just need to sign up with their car details through the optin form. After that you send them an automatic answer telling them that you are looking for better deals and will let them know if you find one. (you can even actually do it by calling a few dealers) If you get conversions it would mean that the customer side shows interest.
I can think of more problems with the dealer side, because this would drive up the prices of the cars they buy. But this doesn't mean that it necesseraly would be a dealbreaker issue.

Start talking to people, testing your, and put together a busines plan.

As someone who used to work at an auto auction myself, I kinda like the idea.

But the logistics of setting it up in a way people use it would be tough. How would you teach people about it? The dealer sure isn't going to mention, oh by the way... maybe someone else will give you more if you post it online.

What about the same idea, but targeting the dealers instead?

They're always looking for cars and wanting to flip the cars they have. At least we were, but like I said we ran an auction and 3 lots.

If there was a place you could list wholesale deals and find them, there would definitely be people hustlin it.

It's all about marketing my friend. You may be a person who comes up with great ideas like me but I have realized that idea is just the beginning. The real work is in marketing. With that being said you mentioned you are a car salesman so you can get your site up and running and make card and give it to people looking for quotes and also to dealers.

There are very few things which can make or break this business which are really specific to industry behavior and dealers know about that, you can discuss with your friends in the industry and get good review before investing good money in it.

Good luck

I am not in the car business, but there are car auction sites, where people can bid on purchasing cars. Not sure how this would impact what you are proposing. Then seem very similiar

If I was on the dealer side I don't know if I would offer a quote without inspecting the car first, not just an online photo.

When the customer shows up and the dealer drops the offer by $100s or more the customer would get pretty upset. Also, I could imagine dealers just posting offers to get the customers just to come to their lot.

I hope you come up with a way to make it work, I would definitely use it.

I love it. I know nothing about cars or the auto business, but I think it is an exhilarating idea.

There are a million ways to screw it up, but if you start small and guide it through the growing pains, I think you could have a really nice business model there.

I would question letting consumers bid. I think you have to decide early on who your customers are... businesses or consumers. You probably can't have it both ways. If you restrict it to people in the car business only, you will have something they will see more value in, and be more willing to participate in. Make potential bidders apply for access.

If you allow consumers to bid, then you are just competing with ebay and craigslist (among others, like local autotrader-type magazines) and you will probably lose that contest. I know it is not quite the same (well, ebay might be pretty similar) but they are looking at them equally as options to sell their car. You had better deliver some strong benefit if they are going to list with you rather than those established mediums.

Some questions to contemplate...

How will you protect your buyers from getting screwed by bidding off of a photo/description?

How will you protect your sellers from shady buyers (i.e. bounced checks, title fraud, etc)

How will you protect yourself as an honest broker?

How will you get lots of bidders registered for the site?

How will you make sure the bidders swarm the listings, creating excitement and active auctions?

Good luck developing the idea, and keep us informed of your progress!

I was in the car business for a long time. I honestly don't see
dealers being at all interested in this idea. They already have
many online sources where they can bid vehicles in real time
with trusted sources. If it's a one shot deal from a retail customer
99.999% of the used car managers I've ever known would want
to see the vehicle in person. It's not like offering a buy bid to
another dealer you've done business with before.

Best thing to do is survey some used vehicle managers to see
if such a service would have value for them. I'd talk to at least
100 of them before making any decisions on this.

Here's a flaw: I have a $30,000 late model used car. What dealer in his right mind is going to give me a bid for that amount online without inspecting the vehicle first? And because they won't do it, they'll try to get me to come to their business where the bid will end up half that amount . . . or they'll try to sell me their "special deal" of the day.

Steve

how exactly is it different than Ebay Autos that has been around forever?