I got my car inspected by Cars24 only today. Before relying on their service, I had already researched from numerous websites about the possible price of my car. I also compared my car, with an honest appraisal of its condition, with other cars in the second hand market. Consistently, all websites provided me a range of 3.4-3.7 lakhs for the car, given that it is in excellent condition, fully insured for 10 more months, and comes with a 3 year old music system in excellent condition.
The inspection itself was smoothly conducted. The inspector had 13 years of prior experience, and was very courteous.
However, to my greatest surprise, after the inspection was complete, a Cars24 official called me and informed me that based on an auction held for 30 minutes, the highest bid for my car was 2.3 lakhs. Imagine that! They were unwilling to share the inspection report, or reveal how my car was described / presented to the bidders. The actual bids were also not shared with me. Basically, I had to rely entirely on the word of the official. So the whole process was very opaque/non-transparent.
After some research, I am given to understand that, by virtue of their business model, they only sell cars to second hand car dealers. Assuming that a car has a fair market-value of Rs. X, they reduce the amount of their own profit margin(say Rs. Y), and the profit margin of the car dealers purchasing from Cars24(say Rs. Z). In my case, (Y+Z) was a hefty Rs. 1.2 lakhs! Therefore, they quote a price for your car at Rs. X -(Y+Z).
I’d say that the price of making the effort to sell the car in the open market directly, through word of mouth, online portals, and social media, is far less than the(Y+Z) described above.
The choice is yours!:)