In the 21st century, searching and subsequently buying cars from online car vendors is by far the most convenient method of acquiring the car or vehicles of your choice. As opposed to going from one showroom to the other, online shopping affords you the flexibility of researching and adequately assessing several vendors before any meaningful cash commitment.

The beauty of online car shopping is the unlimited freedom to get as much information about a range of cars or a specific car you might have in mind and all you will ever need to get this to happen is just a few hours on your mobile phone or pc. However, like every other aspect of life with clear advantages, the disadvantages of going the online way are inevitable. Extra care must be taken to make sure you don’t get ripped off in the process; hence to ensure you maximize the advantages of online car shopping, you will need a few nuggets to guide you. Below are a few of these pointers garnered from years of online car shopping and prospecting.

Be patient: as there are thousands of deals out there on several websites in Nigeria and before paying, physically assess the car!

Discover the price trend: different websites or different online forums have an almost definite price trend which you have to uncover through informed comparisons. On some websites you might find car deals with a minimum of #200,000 mark-up and some might even be extra exorbitant, so you need to study websites independently before you decide to start negotiations. These price trends come about as a result of the pioneer advertisers’ pricing attitude online which forces other newer advertisers to mark-up as well to compete.

Middlemen are almost inevitable: the main reason behind this is because most car dealers are hardly internet-savvy and dedicated online marketers get these deals circulated for the main car dealers, when these cars are finally sold via their efforts they must get a cut. It’s now left for you to negotiate accordingly without getting cheated.

Search for cars close to you: if the geographical location of a nice deal isn't fairly within your proximity, don’t be tempted by how cheap it might be. Scammers lure lots of victims with low prices and if you are lucky not to get ripped off your hard-earned car savings, you will end up losing precious time and maybe put your life at risk.

Use foreign websites: especially from the country of origin of the particular car you want to buy. Why this is advisable is because through these websites you can get real user experience and the real selling price of such used car deal over there. If this car in question has reliability issues in its country of origin, such is very likely not to change when it gets to Nigeria. As for the price, the difference (Nigeria selling price minus origin country’s selling price) should be slightly higher than the cost of clearing and shipping. However take note varying specifications of even the same model range and year.

Some good deals come from dealers without car stands: from experience I have wrapped-up deals in remote areas like Ejigbo, Lagos with honest dealers with no car stands by the road. As for Nigeria-used deals, you will hardly find deals in car stands, so don’t always be in a hurry to back off because there is no car stand.

Pay attention to posted pictures: because if what the poster claims deviates even a tiny fragment from what you see you should immediately suspect foul-play. Take note of where these pictures are taken and how they are taken; an example is where there are no interior pictures or when the views of the pictures seem taken in a hurry.

Avoid deals too good to be true: some of these are false custom-seized deals, fake auctions, personal cars, cars claimed to be ‘used by women’, etc. Research properly before trusting these market leads.
http://autobaseafrica.com/the-ultimate-online-car-purchase-guide/