I wish Autotrader had a...

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,299
REPORT THIS ADVERT option.
Looking for a cheap runabout, lots of results for £999. Tidy. Except they're not.
They're 2 grand plus or whatever.

Presumably this is done to get to the top of the search listing as well as take advantage of the 'advertise your car for cheap if it's less than a grand' offer.

Tis massively frustrating filtering through this bs.

Rant over.
 
It's SEO you price something at 999 instead of 1000 and it appears at the top of the page

Unfortunately, people are doing this for cars that cost £1500, £2000, £2150, etc. It is completely false advertising and they're getting one over Autotrader too. It's a no win tbh.
 
It's the same for mileage.
You select the option to search for cars under 40K miles and it pings up cars with "12" or "14" miles which in the ad itself is actually 120K or 140K miles.
Just things to look out for really.
 
I can't see how this is actually useful for the people advertising though?

If you're looking for a car below £1000 and you see one advertised as such, which then turns out to be £3k in the description, you're not going to buy it.

If you're looking for a £3k car, you'll see one advertised for £800 and ignore it because you think it's a shed.

Pretty pointless really and yes, very annoying!
 
Its pointless and only goes to highlight the intelligence level of the average trader flogging cheap cars (And they are almost always home traders). Nobody who has filtered cars based on mileage only to bring up 40k mile cars is going to spot on with '14 miles' and think 'Well I wanted a sub 40k miler but actually I think I will buy this one with 140k'.

Similarily nobody who is looking for sub £1k cars will go 'Oh, its actually £2k? I shall buy'.
 
[TW]Fox;20802964 said:
Similarily nobody who is looking for sub £1k cars will go 'Oh, its actually £2k? I shall buy'.

You attribute too much intelligence to joe public.
Imagine if you will, a young woman who is looking for a car. She only wants to spend £1k so she puts that amount in the search.
A £2k VW Beetle comes up and she thinks; "Hmmm, I'd really love one of those. I can afford £2k maybe if I get a loan". Then, off she goes to buy the car.
 
[TW]Fox;20802964 said:
Nobody who has filtered cars based on mileage only to bring up 40k mile cars is going to spot on with '14 miles' and think 'Well I wanted a sub 40k miler but actually I think I will buy this one with 140k'.

Similarily nobody who is looking for sub £1k cars will go 'Oh, its actually £2k? I shall buy'.

You attribute too much intelligence to joe public.
Imagine if you will, a young woman who is looking for a car. She only wants to spend £1k so she puts that amount in the search.
A £2k VW Beetle comes up and she thinks; "Hmmm, I'd really love one of those. I can afford £2k maybe if I get a loan". Then, off she goes to buy the car.

Agreed. Furthermore I may be looking for a car that's around 70-90k miles. So in autotrader I whack in "under 100k miles". However some dodgy trader gets one to pop up, in just the spec I want, for a great price, with 110k miles. Humm... now it's tempting to pay it a visit....
 
if you sell a car on AT for less than £1000 you get 'Bargain Price' advertisment costs, think its like £9.99 per add vs the normal fee of about £35
 
if you sell a car on AT for less than £1000 you get 'Bargain Price' advertisment costs, think its like £9.99 per add vs the normal fee of about £35

It's almost certainly this rather than any attempt to advertise and hope people decide to spend more, it's just because it costs vastly less to place the ads in that section and these people are being cheap.
 
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