Although they didn’t know it at the time, Latin speakers coined the term “caveat emptor” specifically for the second hand FB/Gumtree car market. It’s a fresh-baked, steaming turd pie with a very ungenerous peppering of goodwill and honesty. Sound good? Let’s start selling.
Photos are everything – private car sales are all about lulling your buyer into a false sense of security that you’ve looked after the car well. So what better way to show that than to post photos of your flogged out Commodore next to fresh burnout marks you’ve made in some godforsaken bumfuck road?
Don’t forget the interior is a big drawcard too. So don’t do anything silly like clean all the shit you keep in your car out for the pictures. Not only does this promote realistic standards of car hygiene but it’ll give your buyer some ideas where they can stash their ice pipe or stolen coin donation boxes you’ve swiped from Chicken Treat.
A fistful of salt – a true marketplace car salesman must really bank on the fact no one intends to have a mechanic look over the car before buying it. After all, who wouldn’t take the word of a seller whose 5 recent profile pics are them holding an unimpressive wad of cash and giving the finger to the camera?
One must walk the line between sales puffery and outright fraud. Don’t worry if you stagger and stumble awkwardly on the side of misrepresentation because you know a thing or two about avoiding service of court documents. It’s only a civil matter if they can find ya.
Red book is out the window – post-COVID and Holden packing up shop is a new paradigm. Previously, one might have relied on a red book valuation to get a ballpark figure but not you. You know that your Commodore is a “collector’s items” or that your poorly maintained Patrol is now the most desired vehicle in the world.
As a general rule, take whatever the red book value is, triple it and then spend the next 3 weeks threatening to fight anyone who calls you out for trying your luck with such an absurdly exorbitant sales price. Especially given you have no service history, 300,000 ks and what looks to be a poorly removed Yellow Sticker on the windscreen.
The caption – a true social media car salesman know you don’t sell the ice you sell the sizzle. You need to whip up a big cloud of salesmanship to distract the buyer from your ghastly photos and list of fraudulent mechanical representations.
Go hard with a grammarless, rambling paragraph about how you’re only selling your prized pig because you need to fund Grandma’s eye surgery and then effortlessly segue into an aggro conclusion about what you’ll do to timewasters, dreamers and low ballers. Think of it like you’re trying to start a fight.
If you’ve gotten this far then all you need to do now is wait for worse people to contact you wanting to know if your car is still available. Although, all things considered, it’s ably what you deserve at this point. Get your life together.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?