BECOME A CARAMIGO AGENT AND BOOST YOUR REVENUES BY SELLING USED CARS

CarAmigo helps garages & repair shops with a process that simplifies and facilitates the sale of used vehicles from A to Z, with comprehensive guarantees for all parties involved. Whether buyer, seller or garage, everyone benefits.

The sale of a car by a private individual takes place either via a dealership trade-in (often linked to the purchase of a new car), or directly, from private individual to private individual. In the former case, the sale is often frustratingly low because the trade-in price is (too) low; in the latter, there is a high risk of scams, not to mention the anxiety of selling to unfamiliar buyers.

The opposite is also true: when a private individual buys a used car from a dealer or professional reseller, the vehicle is covered by a legal warranty but the price is high; on the other hand, when he buys directly from a private individual, he runs many risks.

Alex Gaschard, CarAmigo’s founder: "Between private individuals, one sale in six gives rise to problems. Buyers often lack technical knowledge and are easy victims of scams; we all know a friend or relative who bought a vehicle... that broke down a few months after purchase. In Europe, annual losses due to scams in used vehicle transactions between private individuals are estimated at 9.8 billion! Sellers are also targeted by scammers, and there are regular reports of counterfeit money, forged certified cheques, fake payment apps, theft of the vehicle during the test drive, etc...". In 2021, more than 500 vehicles were stolen in Belgium by fake buyers who presented their victims with a fake banking app.

Studies show that 89% of used car buyers are interested in a warranty, and that 41% of them have already had problems when buying a used car.

These are just some of the reasons why Alex Gaschard decided to develop CarAmigo.

A fully digitized transaction process

CarAmigo is an application that enables a repair shop to take care of the sale of a used vehicle, in complete security for both the seller and the buyer.

Very easy to use, it consists of 3 main elements:

1. A complete pre-sale inspection of the vehicle by the garage
2. A six months' Real Garant warranty ?
3. A 100% secure payment

Benefits for garages

Lacking space to store vehicles, or the capital to buy them before resale, many repairers are not -or not very- active in used car sales. However, with the transition to e-mobility, and the fact that electric vehicles require 30% to 40% less maintenance & repairs than combustion-powered cars, repairers can expect a gradual but drastic drop in sales. To compensate for this drop, the sale of used cars and associated services seems like a logical step.

Alex Gaschard: "Selling used cars normally implies having a large parking lot or showroom, being financially sound enough to buy cars before reselling them, and all the administrative management of this stock. With CarAmigo, everything comes together in one easy-to-use app.”

What's more, every customer of a repair shop necessarily owns a car that will one day be sold, so this car owner has built up a relationship of trust with that shop and would like to call on it to sell it; what's more, within a 5 km radius of any garage, many private individuals are currently selling their cars themselves - in other words, the potential is enormous.?

Based on the model of a real estate agency, the repair shop receives a commission on each sale, is entrusted with the inspection of the vehicle and can build loyalty with its customer, the seller, while ensuring that the buyer -whom the garage originally didn't know- becomes its future customer, notably with a discount voucher. If the inspection reveals any defects, the garage can offer a quotation to remedy them. Finally, if a car sold subsequently proves to have a problem, the Real Garant warranty comes into play, enabling the garage to be entrusted with the necessary repairs.

How it works

The garage easily registers a car, simply by scanning the registration document via the CarAmigo app, and then carries out the quality inspection, a list of around 40 checkpoints to be examined by the garage, drawn up by Real Garant. If everything is in order, a quality certificate, required to automatically benefit from Real Garant's six-month post-sale warranty, is drawn up and sent by email.

On the basis of a reference database, a proposed selling price follows, which includes the Real Garant warranty. The seller can accept this selling price, or bid higher or lower.

After signing the sales mandate on the smartphone, the garage takes photos to launch the sale via an automatic publication of the advert on several car marketplaces. Vehicles offered for sale online will benefit from additional visibility thanks to the inclusion of the Real Garant six-month warranty.

As the sale is made through the repair shop, potential buyers contact the former and book an appointment via the app.

The sales contract is then automatically drawn up and digitally signed via the app. ?

As in a real estate transaction with a notary, the sale amount is "parked" in an escrow account, until the buyer collects the car from the repair shop, which will automatically release the financial transaction via the app. The release of funds automatically triggers the payment to the seller, the commission to the repair shop and the warranty premium to Real Garant. A warranty certificate is also emailed to the buyer, together with a discount voucher to encourage them to visit the garage

More information on www.caramigo.autos .

The above is a translation of the article originally published in French in Infogarage .