Used-car Company You Can Trust

[RonBoyd]

I am not in the market for a car but if I was and I lived on the West Coast, I would find this very tempting.

The Next Big Thing You Missed: An Online Used-Car Company You Can Actually Trust

Beepi’s model begins with a promise to car sellers: It guarantees that sellers will receive $1000 more for each car than they could get from a traditional dealer. If the car doesn’t sell on the open market within 30 days, Beepi will buy the car itself, at the agreed-upon price.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the transaction, buyers can’t haggle. Cars are only available at the price listed online. But Beepi handles all the paperwork and payment processing, and it works to ensure that each car is reliable.

The company runs each car through a 185-point inspection. It doesn’t accept cars that have had more than two owners or have been driven with more than 60,000 miles. And as Resnik tells it, the company’s service plugs into online systems operated by local DMVs, vehicle history databases like AutoCheck and CarFax, insurance companies, and others, checking whether submitted cars have ever been in an accident. It also verifies that vehicles haven’t been recalled.

But who knows:

After launching in San Francisco and subsequently expanding to LA, the service now offers delivery to 140 cities, and in the next six months, it will expand to 12 more cities across the country.

https://www.beepi.com/

 

[JoeWras]

Interesting!

CarMax more or less does this. But they have a lot of overhead. A lot. The carrying cost of inventory alone is massive.

These guys get rid of all that for the most part. They do claim to buy it after 30 days, so not exactly sure how that works. I would guess since all cars are under 60k, they are confident of a quick sell.

BTW, if you sell, you have to give them access to your facebook profile and they will give the buyer certain details from that. You don't need to do that with CarMax. You can also pretty much sell anything to CarMax, whereas these guys have restrictions. And of course, CarMax sale can be near instant.

I see pluses and minuses to both. I'll say when settling certain aspects of a family member's estate, the convenience of CarMax was well worth it. Yes, we took about a 15 to 25% haircut from a hard-driven private sale.

This will be interesting to watch.