[TusharK]

OLX - the online marketplace for pre-owned cars and other goods has partnered with the Frontier Car Group (FCG) to launch its offline pre-owned car business called as OLX Cash My Car.



FCG builds and operates pre-owned automotive marketplaces within emerging markets. As part of the joint venture, OLX and FCG have agreed to share technological resources, expertise and knowledge to build and operate OLX Cash My Car stores across multiple Indian cities.

According to the company, OLX Cash My Car will offer end-to-end free service for users. These include inspection of vehicle and its documentation. Once the inspection is completed, the car will be auctioned online to OLX Cash My Car channel partners and the best price will be offered to the owner. Once the owner accepts the offer, payment will be made immediately. The entire process is claimed to take less than 45 minutes. All the paperwork for the transfer and other documents will be handled by OLX Cash My Car for free.

Currently, there are 27 OLX Cash My Car stores in New Delhi, Faridabad, Noida, Ghaziabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai. The company plans to setup 150 stores in 40 cities by the end of 2021.

Link to Team-BHP News

[NTO]

Their online sales too is pretty good. Their internet presence is that strong that, I posted listing of my Jazz in the morning today and it got sold now while my listing is yet to go live on multiple platforms including our own classifieds.

[sharninder]

Originally Posted by NTO

Their online sales too is pretty good. Their internet presence is that strong that, I posted listing of my Jazz in the morning today and it got sold now while my listing is yet to go live on multiple platforms including our own classifieds.

The only problem with direct sales is the transfer formalities. OLX (and cars24) take care of that and if one is ok with the premium they charge, I think its a good option. Of course, selling direct will get you the best price.

[budgam.boonyi]

OLX does have a good online presence. There are two things i really dislike about their format.

1. It is extremely frustrating that there isn't a simple field for searching for automatic cars. I believe even if you specifically search for automatic cars it only goes through the titles where many people don't mention the same.

2. Even more pain inducing is to search for a specific trim. Was trying to find an Asta i10, most people don't even bother mentioning the trim. So you have to go through every i10 post to deduce from the pics or description what trim its in. Many times clicking on a post that says top model which turns out to be a sportz or magna. (looking for those elusive ABS and air bags signs and stamps)

On this new brick and mortar stores, will only used cars dealers be bidding on the cars? Wont this give you lower prices? Perhaps convenient if you require an urgent sale or don't want too much hassle and are prepared to take the cut. How are they going to make money if its free?

[GTO]

OLX is the KING of online classifieds in India. I sold my Civic & found my 530d on their website. My brother sold his iPhone within 2 hours on OLX, while BHPian Parrys sold his motorcycle within 48 hours of listing. It is really, really something else.

Cars24 recently announced that they are now doing 10,000 transactions a month. That must've surely caught OLX's eye as the business model has the potential for huge profits. Used car dealers are always on the lookout for good inventory and because car owners now have so many options to sell (direct, trade-in, brokers, Cars24 etc.), the competition is getting fierce for your car. The more the organised players in this segment, the better for us owners as we can pit them against each other for our car (just like we pit dealer quotes against each other when buying new cars).

I wish OLX the best. However, OLX is dabbling in way too many things. I doubt it will have the sniper-like focus of Cars24 as its the latter's primary business.

Related Thread (Experience: Selling my car to Cars24.com)

Originally Posted by sharninder

Of course, selling direct will get you the best price.

True, but it's frankly a headache to meet strangers, have them drive your car, negotiate etc. Requires a lot of time. When I sold my Civic, it was entirely handled by my team. Ditto with my C220 (I didn't even meet the buyer). My disciplined work schedule leaves me absolutely no time for selling the car myself. If it weren't for my team, I would have strongly considered Cars24 & this new offering from OLX. Time is money.

[AJo]

Originally Posted by TusharK

According to the company, OLX Cash My Car will offer end-to-end free service for users. These include inspection of vehicle and its documentation. Once the inspection is completed, the car will be auctioned online to OLX Cash My Car channel partners and the best price will be offered to the owner. Once the owner accepts the offer, payment will be made immediately. The entire process is claimed to take less than 45 minutes. All the paperwork for the transfer and other documents will be handled by OLX Cash My Car for free.
[/b]

My experience with these guys was not great, last month . I listed my car (Fortuner) on olx, for sale & next day got a call from "Olx-Cash My Car". I told them I was only interested in selling my car to an 'end-user' & not to an agent. They gave me some story about being different than other portals & having corporates, hotels, etc as their clients & that they would do instant processing of Transfer Docs & I would know who the buyer is, immediately. They requested that I come to their place for car evaluation, which I refused. So they sent over their person for evaluation. This was done, with no issues.

Next day I got a call from them, quoting a ridiculously low price. I asked about the transfer process & they said will take 3 months, & I will get to know who the new owner is only after that. (All that story about having corporates/hotels etc as their clients to whom they would transfer instantly was rubbish).

I declined to deal with them any further.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by GTO

....I doubt it will have the sniper-like focus of Cars24 as its the latter's primary business...

While I agree that Cars24 has the first mover advantage, is good at what it has been doing and this is its primary business - I have been to OLX's offline sales which are a neck-to-neck copy of what Cars24 does. But this is driven by OLX's online postings in terms of data and sourcing of potential sellers/buyers. So they are using their online reach to lure folks to offline (not exactly offline but rather face-2-face) stores as well and hence make transactions faster.

So in a way OLX has come prepared to the game. This will now depend upon two fronts:
1) What kind of pricing does a seller get on Cars24 v/s OLX.
2) Any new innovation that these player bring to the market.

The clients will sway to those who deliver better

[vigvr]

My experience with OLX Cash My Car was super poor (Chennai).

Detailing my experience here:

I got a retargeted (I think) ad on my Gmail after I was checking estimate on CARS24. I clicked it, went to a page that asked for my vehicle creds, put them in and then I had an option to pick 'Chennai Home Inspection' only. And now, everything is submitted.

Few hours later, I get a call from one Ms. Priyanka, who was with me on call for 7 whole minutes asking me the entire vehicle details all over again. I completely understand if it is a confirmation call but she was asking me to give all the information one by one on the list. I was getting a little impatient but pulled it through. Towards the end she informs me that home inspection isn't possible and I have to take the car to a location in Chennai to get this looked into. Fair enough. I said I was okay with that. The location and the contact number was supposed to reach me by SMS/email. The appointment was fixed for the next day morning 10 AM. Point to note - this call was from a virtual number and so you can't call them back unless you know that specific person's virtual phone extension.

The next day I realize I do not have an SMS or an email to understand where to go to. I had postponed some appointments to accommodate for this as the existing car's sale was pending for quite a while with the new car already in transit. The pressure was higher for me.

I call the same number Priyanka called me from and of course, I didn't know the extension she operated in and the call wouldn't go through. I call up OLX CashMyCar's contact info on the website (which is only open after 10 AM, for which I had to wait longer to make the call again).

This time, Azhar picks up the call. I gave him the history of the conversation with Priyanka and asked him where to head to. All he said was "Plot no 26, Annasalai, Chennai". If you aren't familiar with Chennai - Anna Salai stretches for quite a long distance and the road is essentially NH-45. One can't possibly go looking for a Plot No 26. The locations were also not listed on the OLX website then (it is available now) or on Google Maps. He refused to give me the information of landmark or at least a person I can get in touch if I can't find the place. "I'll raise a request and the relevant team will get in touch with you in 30 min" was the response I got.

I lost my cool. And yet I waited.

Here's a situation where I'm asked to go to a random location along with my car with no SMS or email confirmation of an appointment. Isn't that a BIG red flag? Seriously, how shady is that?

No calls returned, I expected this. But having waited so long I wanted to get this done with. I called the number listed on the website again and Azhar answered the call. He still wouldn't give me a landmark or a point of contact and mentioned his manager would be getting in touch with me regarding the number. I stood my ground and demanded the number and he gave it to me very reluctantly.

Finally, I called up the number he mentioned and took the car there. The inspection though wasn't great.

1. They mentioned they would take pictures of the car and upload on their internal app. I raised concerns about the registration plate to which they said it would be covered with an OLX board - that never happened
2. There was no driving - Evaluator asked me if the engine and transmission were fine and I naturally went 'yeah'.
3. I was supposed to get the price for the car when the auction ends. Waited till EOD, didn't get a fair price.
4. Waited for 3 more days, evaluator calls up and says 'our dealer wants to see the car tomorrow'. Never happened.
5. By that time, I lost faith and started looking at other options. Got a deal from a used car dealer which was better by 1.3 Lakhs. Closed it.

Ultimately, I just lost my patience with OLX. It didn't start well and it didn't end well either.

My guess - OLX trying to bite a little more than they can chew. They started advertising about this way before they set up everything in place. They could have just made a home appointment to avoid all this drama, if they didn't have their offline inspection centres up and ready yet.

[Lakwontsing]

I am looking to sell my Santro Xing 2007.
The Honda person through whom I am purchasing new car, introduced me to one of his known person who offered 70,000 for it.
But when I check the price on Cars 24, Gaadi.com and Olx Cashmycar websites, the price indicated is more than that. In fact OLX shows upper range as 1.05 Lakh.

1. Has someone availed Cash my car from OLX? Is the price indicated online is similar to what they actually offer?
2. I had installed new music system+speakers last year (INR 16,000) and new tyres 8 months back (covered 10,000 km). Would it help in getting better price from these people?

Note: I had posted the advertisement on olx and I received almost 50 responses but turned out most of them were fake and belonged to olx/cars24 etc. It is hard to find genuine buyer who wants to buy for himself out of this sea of fake responses.

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by Lakwontsing

Note: I had posted the advertisement on olx and I received almost 50 responses but turned out most of them were fake and belonged to olx/cars24 etc. It is hard to find genuine buyer who wants to buy for himself out of this sea of fake responses.

In the recent past I have always sold all my cars via a premium posting on OLX. Infact just yesterday I sold our 2009 BMW 520d via olx for a lakh more than what cars24 offered me. The chat feature works well, even though most people will try and low ball you it is only genuine when a customer is ready to come over and see the car. I have a standard reply for people that throw prices over chat- "Come see the car, only then can discuss price" only a genuine customer will make the effort to come have a look. Another tip is to be upfront that you don't want to deal with agents/brokers, only direct buyers will give you better price.

However, for a santro I think cars24 will give a decent price and ready sale. Stop by one of their outlets for an hour and get your bid. Their website rates are indicative and final price offered will be based on what the bid generates hence without a visit you are only taking guesses.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by Lakwontsing

1. Has someone availed Cash my car from OLX? Is the price indicated online is similar to what they actually offer?
2. I had installed new music system+speakers last year (INR 16,000) and new tyres 8 months back (covered 10,000 km). Would it help in getting better price from these people?

What Sahil has mentioned above is 100% correct and you should too follow the same approach - ask the buyers to visit and then talk price.

About your questions:

1) No the price indicated online is always higher than what they will quote you at the store. There is likely to be a difference of 20% at-least.

2) Will help only if you deal with a buyer directly. Otherwise it is better to remove the accessories such as the music system. Tires will be your USP when negotiating.

[Lakwontsing]

Thanks guys for your inputs.

Went to OLX cash my car (Santro Xing 2006) outlet today. They had detailed inspection of car for 30 min plus test drive. They said target price as per system would be 60k and if I agree they will put it on auction. The auction price may or may not be 5-10k up or down.

Looks like odometer reading went against getting a better deal. It has run for 1,70,000 km.

So I think I will go with 70k deal offered by the Honda guy from where I am getting my new car.

I can't maintain two cars so I want to get rid of my companion to office for 12 years as soon as possible.

[civic-sense]

I recently sold my Ford Ecosport to OLX Cash My Car. I booked an appointment each with OLX and Cars24. First turn was with OLX. They had a cursory look at the car, did not drive it and stopped short of quoting a price. They wanted me to do the evaluation with cars24 and come back, and they would better the offer. Sounded shady to me, so I left. Cars24 was much more professional in their dealings, the evaluation process was thorough, drove for about 15 minutes, and asked me to wait for 45 minutes while do an "auction" and at the end quoted a ridiculously low price. I left in despair thinking of selling it to some individual buyer. I had a decent quote from somebody but he had his fair share of tantrums. But the next day the guy from OLX called back wanting to know what Cars24 offered me. I said it was low and told him the offer I have from the individual buyer. He offered to pay a sum close to the individual buyer if I took the car to their place immediately. Not wanting to deal with the individual buyer's tantrums anymore I just drove over and sold it to OLX. The deal wasn't bad considering the hassles I don't have to go through. The money was transferred in about an hour.

So, in a nutshell, OLX wasn't very transparent in the dealings, and it was somewhat close to negotiating with dealers, but at the end it ended well.

[tushky]

I sold my 2007 Indica Xeta to OLX cash my car. I had visited CARS24 before going to olx. Cars24 offered me Rs.13000 including 1000 cars24 fee. However at olx, the guy asked me my expectations and I said him i am expecting atleast Rs.20000. The bid closed Rs.15000. However olx guy offered me to give Rs.20000 on closing the deal on the same day. I accpeted the offer and sold my car to olx. The SE was informative and explained me the procedure very well. Overall good experience than cars24.

[narayan]

Originally Posted by GTO

The more the organised players in this segment, the better for us owners as we can pit them against each other for our car (just like we pit dealer quotes against each other when buying new cars). .

Not quite. These players eventually ensure they face both buyer and seller and control prices in the market. That's what a data driven new generation digital player does. Collect enough data about consumer behaviour and then create monopolistic conditions where consumers eventually give in in the name of convenience. ( Remember ride hailing ? ...soon e-commerce will follow suit )Very soon, mark my words, you will find it very difficult to get a direct buyer or seller if you want a car. EVERY LISTING will become an agent listing and prices would get controlled by them. In that situation, these "organised" players will come to our "rescue" with "professional' dealing and make the cut while we think we got a better deal.