I have a cousin by the name of Billy who was after a used car in Bolton. At first I assumed he would use all the usual channels to find the car that was right for him. With the click of a mouse I can bring up all the used cars Bolton has to offer. But it turns out that the way I would go about trying to find a second hand car local to Bolton might not be as obvious to other people. He started talking about ads that he’d seen in a local paper, which is fair enough but to be honest it wouldn’t be the first thing I would think to do when it comes to a used car hunt.
Maybe I am being overly assumptive, but I imagine most people would be the same as me in that their first port of call would be to get online immediately and search used cars Bolton or something similar immediately. But when I suggested this to cousin Billy he seemed a little bit anxious and untrustworthy of the internet, saying things like you never know if it’s a con or he doesn’t want to have to scroll through thousands of cars from all over the UK which is another thing that took me by surprise.
So I got my laptop out and showed him a few tricks of the trade, I did a simple google search for used Peugeot 308 Bolton, (he likes the 308) clicked on the first link which was a site called AutoVillage if I remember rightly, and straight away we had page after page of Peugeot 308s to scroll through, all local to our area.
Previously I had taken it for granted that everybody would know that it was possible to fine tune your searches on the internet and make them specific to the area you are in. But there is much more that can be done on the web, whereas with the classified ads in the paper you can’t filter them at all, on most used car websites you can specify the car you are after to its smallest detail, you can include your budget, your colour preference, engine size, amount of miles and much more.
Obviously when I showed primitive Billy these features he was left kicking himself that he hadn’t done it sooner, opting for the more pain staking way of doing things, waiting for the car he wanted to come to him through the means of a local newspaper.
Moral of the Story
The moral of the story then, is that sometimes change is good, and I couldn’t recommend using the internet for things like local used car buying strongly enough. I simple search of used cars Bolton and you are away. Billy is now the proud owner of a used Volkswagen Polo (he decided the 308 wasn’t for him) thanks to a website.