How Gauge is Consistently Able to Offer More for Vehicles
At Gauge, we have one goal: to help you get the highest offer on your vehicle.
Here's how we do it.
By Tori Camejo
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At Gauge, we have one goal: to help you get the highest offer on any vehicle that you want to sell. While we know it’s not possible for us to be the highest offer on every vehicle every time, we have built a process that has allowed us to do so on the majority of vehicles we see.
Gauge is not a dealership, and does not provide the traditional dealership experience most people are accustomed to. Instead, we’ve created a way to connect your vehicle quickly and directly with buyers who’ve explicitly expressed interest in vehicles like yours. This eliminates (a) the necessity of shopping dealership to dealership for a good offer, and (b) the headache of showing your vehicle to a bunch of potential buyers who may or may not make you a strong offer (or who may not make you an offer at all!). Here’s how we do it:
We document the exact condition of your vehicle.
When buyers are unsure of the exact condition of a used car they’re buying, they have to price in the risk that there could be something wrong with the vehicle that they didn’t know about beforehand. That’s why we inspect every vehicle and create detailed condition reports for every vehicle that we see. It may seem nitpicky to show a picture of a small scratch or dent, but calling out even minor flaws gives our buyers the confidence that they know exactly what they’re buying. They can put their best offer forward because they don’t have to factor in additional margin for potential flaws or issues that haven’t been accounted for.
We find buyers who are specifically looking for vehicles like yours.
Not every buyer or dealership is as interested in your vehicle as the next. We have a large buyer network spanning local, regional, and national markets. Because we’ve built strong relationships with these buyers, they trust us to locate the vehicles they want to purchase. This allows us to put your vehicle in front of the buyers who are most interested in it and are therefore willing to pay more for it — even if they aren’t local.
We make interested buyers compete for your vehicle.
When you take your vehicle to a dealership, they’ll often make you a low-ball offer because they aren’t competing with anyone. This forces you to shop for a dealership that will make you a higher offer, or spend time and energy showing your vehicle to a bunch of prospective buyers. You can try to get several offers within a short period of time, but it’s difficult to manually simulate the amount of competition that we can drive in our true auction format. By providing a detailed digital condition report and sending it en masse to the buyers in our network, interested buyers can make offers quickly and easily. And when buyers compete, you win!
We've aligned our interests with yours.
Your goal is to get as much money as reasonably possible for your vehicle within current market conditions. We’ve structured our process so that our goal is aligned with yours — to pay you as much as the market will possibly allow for your vehicle.
Because we don’t hold inventory like dealers do, we don’t have to make thousands of dollars on each vehicle to make up for financing costs and the risk of not being able to sell a vehicle for profit. We also don’t need to pay for real estate to hold the vehicle. And, since we don’t sell vehicles, we don’t spend a lot of money on marketing and advertising. Our team doesn’t work off commissions so we don’t have to make room for a large profit margin when buying your vehicle.
What’s more, we don’t require any type of up front commitment like a consignor would, and we’re willing to compete with any other buyer out there. We don’t try to “close” you on the spot like a dealership would; we understand and expect that you’ve got other interested buyers, so our offers are good for several days. Because we make only a small transaction fee (typically a few hundred bucks, and always paid by the buyer — never paid by you!), we don’t make more money by paying less for your vehicle. In fact, the more we pay for your vehicle, the more money we make from our buyers!
We only make money when you make money.
Gauge is a low-margin, high-volume company. Rather than trying to buy a few vehicles at a high profit margin, we focus on providing you with a great price and a great experience so that you’ll tell your friends and family about us and come back to us next time you’re looking to sell a vehicle.
Our mission is to make sure you get the most money for your vehicle, whether or not that ends up being with us (although we’ll always work hard to be your highest offer!). If you’re ready to get more for your vehicle without the haggle and hassle or selling to a dealership or private buyer, give us a call today and one of our experienced Seller Success Specialists will help you get started!
