Pre-sale car interior detailing: a few hundred pounds in, a few thousand back on the price
Professional interior cleaning, smoke and pet odour removal and plastic polishing at the seller's home, with the clear goal of lifting the sale price.
You run a mobile detailing service for private sellers of used cars getting the vehicle ready for the ad. You arrive at their home with a steam cleaner, ozone, professional chemistry and a polisher. You clean the carpets and leather seats, remove cigarette or pet odours, polish plastics and dashboard to showroom condition. The client then photographs the clean car for the ad and achieves a materially higher sale price than if they shot it in the state they were driving it for a year.
The owner of a used car decides to sell. They photograph it on their drive with old coffee in the holder, crumbs on the seat and a faint smoke smell. The ad sits on Auto Trader for weeks, buyers turn up for a viewing, smell the cabin and leave. The price gradually drops, the frustrated seller cuts, until they let it go well below expectations.
๐The used car market in the UK is growing and private sellers are a meaningful share
Auto Trader, Cinch and Motors report year on year growth of privately listed cars. These sellers have no pre-sale detailing capacity of their own and look for someone to prepare the car for the ad. This group is gradually learning that a higher price is available for a small upfront investment.
