[UB_007]

Early days of OLX I always thought car ads on olx are placed only after owners haven't found the right buyer through dedicated car site or dealer. My respect for cars sold on OLX was quite low . I was so wrong. Many of my friends and relatives have found good cars on OLX lately. I can believe they transact more cars than other online portals.
In Germany ebay runs a site like this called 'eBayKleinanzeigen' where individuals can directly buy or sell.

-UB

[GTO]

Read on the-ken.com that OLX gets a whopping 15,000 car listings a day! And now, this just in from their PR team:

Listing of Unboxed cars, i.e. owned for less than 2 years, are seeing an impressive growth on OLX, as per the 2nd edition of the OLX Automobile Report. They registered an 18% y-o-y growth in 2018 over 2017. While 1.1 lac Unboxed cars were listed on OLX between January – August 2017, the listings jumped to 1.3 lac between January-August 2018. More impressively, buyer inquiries for such cars jumped 50% in 2018. While this is predominantly a metro trend at present, it is expected to play out in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the coming months.

This growth trend is strongly evident in the premium cars category, which is expected to dominate the pre-owned automobile sales this festive season. Listings for premium brands such as Audi, BMW, and Mercedes Benz have grown 49% in 2018. SUVs outsell sedans, on the whole, showcasing the buyer’s penchant towards having a bit of muscle on the road. Maruti, Honda and Mahindra are the top brands in the Unboxed cars segment on OLX.

Delhi-ites lead the seller volume for Unboxed cars in the premium cars category, with 30% share of all listings, while Mumbai-kars follow with 20% share. Chennai and Kolkata, with 8% and 5% share respectively of premium cars listings, are the next biggest markets.

The report also throws light on key growth drivers for Unboxed cars. Frequent launches have increased the want for users to upgrade their vehicles more frequently, especially among those who yearn for better tech and newer features. This is further accentuated by rising consumer aspirations, reflected in shortening car ownership cycles. For buyers, these unboxed cars offer a substantial 25%-30% discount on the market price of the same car model, which is a very attractive deal for the discerning Indian car buyer.

Commenting on the report, Mr. Sunny Kataria, VP of Auto Category, OLX India said “Unboxed cars represent a fantastic opportunity for buyers to grab a car of their dreams at extremely attractive prices. Unboxed cars are ~30% cheaper than their new counterparts. This festive season, we expect the trend to further accelerate, and witness more unboxed cars entering the market.”

He further added, “. Pre-owned cars have always outsold the new cars, and with the increasing trend of unboxed cars, OLX can bring incredible value and savings for buyers. People are changing cars faster just like their smartphones and this lifestyle trend will give an impetus to the overall car market.”

Auto is the largest category on OLX, generating 40% of all user visits on the platform. The high user interest in pre-owned cars drives upwards of 10 million monthly active users for the cars category alone.

The pre-owned car market presently stands at 3.8 million units annually and is projected to grow to over 7 million units by 2020. This growth will be underpinned by rapid urbanization, the ubiquitousness of smartphones, changing consumer needs, and an ever-growing population of millennials.

Also attaching the OLX Automotive Report:

About the report” 2nd Edition of the OLX Automobile Report

This is the second tri-annual edition of OLX’s pre-owned automobile market trend report for the period of May-August 2018. It captures in-depth consumer buying & selling trends for the four-wheeler segment on the OLX platform and attempts to bring out insights on consumer preferences, metros/non-metro consumer behavior and trending models across pre-owned four-wheeler segment in India.

Defining the “Unboxed Car”: 2nd edition of the OLX Automobile Report highlights an exciting new trend called “Unboxed Cars” on OLX. These are cars that have been manufactured and/or owned for less than two years. They are typically in pristine condition and can be bought on the platform at attractive price points.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by GTO

And now, this just in from their PR team:

"Unboxed car" - isn't this just rediscovering what you've advised us years ago - the value of lateral upgrades (ARTICLE: The Beauty of Lateral Upgrades (Getting MORE CAR for LESS $$$))?

[GTO]

Wow! And for a change, a dominant online player from India that is actually profitable

OLX India has reported a 95 per cent jump in its profits at ₹15.6 crore in 2017-18, as against ₹8 crore in the year ago. OLX, which sells second hand goods from smartphones to high-end cars on its platform, is one of the few online companies to have been growing profitably for the last five years.

The company’s revenues also increased 94 per cent to ₹180 cro re during the fiscal ending March 31, 2018, from ₹92 crore in the previous fiscal, as per the company’s filings with Registrar of Companies that are accessed on business intelligence and data platform Tofler.

Source

[sunilch]

So the other day I was browsing through OLX for some used item that I intend to purchase, my eyes just saw something that looking like a posting mistake.

There was a Rolls-Royce Phantom with an asking price of 3.5Cr listed. On further digging, it seemed to have been posted by a used car dealer in NCR and then I saw a plethora of such postings across the country but mostly from NCR area.

While seeing regular cars such as a old Jaguar, a very old Porsche, some Mercs or BMWs and Land Rovers in the range of 30-40Lacs was common, this is something new for me.

So the question that comes to mind is this:

1) Will an actual buyer of such a super luxury car actually be on OLX?

In some cases the asking prices are very close to the actual price of a new piece. In some cases even new 2019 cars are listed on OLX

Is this even worth the effort to post on OLX?

2) Is there any trick or scam in this that I am yet to understand?

3) OR Is this just a latest fad among used car dealers as the market is actually in a slowdown more recently even for used cars?


Some examples:

2019 LC:
https://www.olx.in/item/toyota-land-...iid-1506525923

2016 Lambo:
https://www.olx.in/item/lamborghini-...iid-1513324567

RR Ghost:
https://www.olx.in/item/rolls-royce-...iid-1510770117

https://www.olx.in/item/rolls-royce-...iid-1512530412

Bently:
https://www.olx.in/item/bentley-cont...iid-1505369269

2008 Hummer H2:
https://www.olx.in/item/other-brands...iid-1229728573

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by sunilch

Will an actual buyer of such a super luxury car actually be on OLX?

Yes why not? This is not a fad, infact OLX is the only option to end users to connect with buyers directly to send high end cars.

I have sold many of my luxury cars through this to good wealthy/ aspirational direct buyers.

You don't really need to be an active OLX user to make use of this, for example someone in the market could google search for "Used Rolls Royce Phantom" and he might land up on OLX. He/she would much rather connect with the party directly. However, most often on OLX it is dealers who are selling the car. Infact if you contact dealers to sell your car today they ask for exclusivity to sell it online and take on the hassle for filtering the buyers. Once they find genuine buyers they will get them to you and take a brokerage or flat fee. OLX and Carwale are the new age mediums for used car dealers today, some don't even have a shop and operate from home via OLX.

For a luxury car buyer it is only Big Boy Toys and Authorised brand showrooms to buy used cars which have hefty margins. Online portals are the best way to go. Infact, most authorised german car showrooms have their inventory up on OLX too.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by Sahil

Yes why not? This is not a fad, infact OLX is the only option to end users to connect with buyers directly to send high end cars. I have sold many of my luxury cars through this to good wealthy/ aspirational direct buyers.

What you just have mentioned makes perfect sense and is something that I do understand already. But my query comes into effect when I consider the price band in question.

I know folks who are young (relatively), have decent budget (say under 40Lacs), are tech savvy and are also relatively at ease when it comes to taking the risk of meeting the seller directly and having the car evaluated by themselves. They can manage to get a good deal on our regular German, European and Japanese examples.

What makes it strange to imagine is someone with a budget of over say 1Cr or 2Cr. I would imagine such a buyer to be relatively aged, be very mindful of his time and resources and someone who would not mind in paying for the extra margin that luxury dealers charge as the buyer like to have some personal provide a good service and support rather than engage in the search for such a car by themselves. Of-course, in reality this is not always 100% true and there are many types of buyers, some new perspectives will always help in understanding the same here at T-BHP I believe.

[lamborghini]

Originally Posted by sunilch

What makes it strange to imagine is someone with a budget of over say 1Cr or 2Cr. I would imagine such a buyer to be relatively aged, be very mindful of his time and resources and someone who would not mind in paying for the extra margin that luxury dealers charge as the buyer like to have some personal provide a good service and support rather than engage in the search for such a car by themselves.

They would have their assistant / someone trustworthy do the digging around, prepare a list of cars available within a budget or by brand, and then have them call up the dealer and organize a test drive.
Either that, or there would be someone younger in the family who would do the research.

I've seen both cases happen.

[Sail]

I think this practice is very much in action and you can trust those advertisements as long as you have done your home-work & all aspects of the car is checked.

Last year I sold my BMW 3GT to a Luxury car dealer in Kolkata.
Completed all documentation & payments by Noon and just by curiosity I started tracking the Dealer activity. By evening the car was put up for sale on dealer’s facebook page, OLX and everywhere possible.



Brdgs,
Sail

[Aditya_Bhp]

OLX is now the place to buy used cars. Earlier, once a week, newspapers used to have full page classifieds for used cars. But now, they have reduced to just 3 or 4 ads.

OLX has made selling and buying used cars really easy. I agree, there are many spams/fake ads but then there are large number of genuine ads too.

So even if a car is just 2lakhs or 2 crores, OLX has ads for everyone, even if the rich buyers dont buy them directly, their agents will be searching on OLX

[Geo_Ipe]

It's usually not easy to find a buyer for your 5 crore Rolls-Royce! I'm not surprised the owner resorted to OLX - connects better to customers and other dealers, like other BHPians have pointed out.

I've once found a Private Medical College + Hospital on sale in the regional newspaper classifieds!! Certain high value things are not easy to sell!

[sunilch]

Yes, I do agree that OLX ad can help a dealer (seller) connect with another dealer (buyer) as the number of such relatively good dealers are limited in count and it is not easy to sell something which is 2Cr+ and yet used.

Putting up a couple of screens as the links may expire in coming time.