[dropcap]B[/dropcap]uying a used car can get to be incredibly tedious. Everyone wants to save money on their vehicle purchase, but not everyone is willing to put in the time, research, and energy to actually get a good deal. Especially if you’re in a country like Nigeria, it can be difficult to find a local dealership that meets your needs and budget. While a less traditional option, it may be worth looking into cars for sale on an online auto auction if you feel stuck in your search. If you’re looking to get the best deal while shopping for used cars for sale in Nigeria, here’s how an auto auction can help you save money.
The format
When you buy a car from an auto auction, you are bidding on used vehicles rather than trying to negotiate with a dealer. While there are some ways you can work with a trained salesman and still come out with a good deal, it takes a lot of practice, care, and will. Rather than brushing up on your deal making skills, you can instead take the much simpler route of bidding against other buyers through an easy-to-use online platform. While many cars have a minimum bid or security deposit of $500, from there you may be able to get the winning bid for only a few hundred dollars more. Of course, you don’t want the excitement of an auction format to get you carried away, so always go into bidding with your maximum bid in mind. You can figure out what a fair price for a used car is by looking it up on a website like Kelley Blue Book and filtering by condition. From there, it’s simple to determine what you’d prefer to pay for the car and stick to that value when you’re bidding.
Variety is another one of the best reasons to take a look at an auto auction when you’re shopping for used cars. This expands your search for beyond what you can find in your own geographic area, and allows you to compare vehicles from other cities around the world. You may have access to a car for auction that originated at a Toyota dealership in the US or a Volkswagen dealership in Canada. Being able to search in this way helps you be more specific about the make, year, and model of the vehicle you want to buy instead of limiting you to the smaller selection of a single few dealers in your home country. Not only can buying from an auto auction save you money, but you’re also much more likely to enjoy the vehicle you buy when you don’t feel like you were forced into purchasing it.
The one aspect of buying a car from overseas that you need to understand before you go into the buying process is how certain duties are calculated on imported and exported goods. Depending on who you are buying the car from and where they are located, you may have to pay a certain percentage of import or export taxes when you get your used car shipped to you. Some dealers will cover their export taxes, but will ask you to front the cost of the import tax. Each country has different regulations, so make sure that you understand what Nigeria’s duty taxes are before you buy a car. You’ll want to estimate what you might owe in duties as you’re determining your maximum bid so that you still get a good deal after paying for other fees like title and registration, too. By putting in a little bit of research, you’ll be sure to get a great deal on your used vehicle.
