How to Make Money Selling American Cars Overseas
by Simon Breedon
The overseas automotive sales market offers a wide range of possibilities to sell your car. In addition providing an even larger pool of potential buyers, many overseas customers are willing to pay much more due to the cost of shipping and other fees. Shipping arrangements, as well as payment processing can appear to be obstacles, but if handled appropriately, your sale can go off without a hitch. Here is what you need to know about selling your car overseas.
Step 1
Figure out the value of your car. MyRide.com and Kelly BlueBook are perfect sites to estimate the value of your ride. Keep in mind that in addition to the cost of the vehicle you may have to pay for shipping fees, that is if you choose to take on the responsibility of shipping. Account for potential added fees when estimating your price. You may have to wait on deciding your final cost of sale until you know the official cost of shipping, and this is something you will not be able to find out until you know the location of your buyer.
Step 2
Open an Ebay auto sales account or an account with a similar auction site like Craigslist. These sites are perfect for targeting international buyers. Ebay provides a shipping calculator that can estimate the cost of shipping as well as provide you with contact information for multiple companies that will come to your home pick up your vehicle and take it to the dock where it will be sent overseas.
Step 3
Once you have secured a buyer, open an account specifically for the sale with very little money in it for security reasons. After the buyer has deposited their payment in the account you can transfer the funds to your actual bank account and immediately close the account used just for the sale. Avoid payment by personal check or money order. You can also open up an account on a site like escrow.com and receive your payment this way. Sites like escrow.com ensure you won't be the victim of fraud.
Step 4
Decide on shipping method. It is wise to wait until you know the destination of our vehicle before settling on a shipping agency as some companies might not ship to every location. It is preferable not to be responsible for shipping, especially the cost of shipping as this could significantly decrease the profit from the sale. Sites like shipmyvehicle.com can provide you with a quote once you registered all of your information on their site. These sites ship domestically and internationally.
Step 5
Draw up a contract between you and your customer, to either fax, or convert to pdf and correspond through e-mail. OpenOffice.org allows you to convert your word files to pdf for free. Upon the signing of the agreement, and the wiring of payment into either the alternative bank account you setup, or your account with escrow.com. Only once you know your payment is secure should you proceed with signing over the title to the buyer and contacting the company you chose to handle your shipping.
References
Tips
- Target a foreign market that is likely to have a lot of potential buyers. According to Forbes Magazine, Portugal, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Iceland, Italy, Australia, Japan, and Slovenia are good markets. Focuses on advertising in these countries and you will no problem finding an overseas buyer.
Things You'll Need
- Alternative checking account
Writer Bio
Simon Breedon has been freelance writing for Newspapers for the past 8 years. He has written for The Washington Informer, Edge Magazine, The Yeti, The FSView and Florida Flambeau Newspaper. He has a BA from Florida State University in Creative non-fiction/ Journalism and a Masters Certification in Editing and Publishing. He is currently attending Law School and studying for a computers science degree.
