Gumtree South Africa chose the 24th of September as D-Day to cap the Gumtree Cars category to a maximum on 2 cars per dealer. There are a few things that have led to this, but none so much as the desire to make more money and turn a profit. That's understandable of course – businesses are in the business of making money whenever the opportunity arises. No self-respecting car dealer has just two cars on its showroom however, so Gumtree has essentially forced the hand of South Africa's dealers with this one.

There is no doubt that the Gumtree Cars platform is successful, but it's become that way because of the easy and effective way it attracts people even when they're not immediately looking for cars, but might actually consider buying one. While dealers could load as many cars as possible on Gumtree, that will now be capped at just 2, and go in blocks of 25. As the classifieds website says, you [dealers] will pay more to list your vehicles of no more than 25, 50, 75, and so on. And with a starting fee of R1750 for 3 to 25 cars, looking at [quality] alternatives is what you should consider. UsedCarsForSale.co.za is one such alternative for the following reasons –

Your vehicles are not capped at a maximum 25 cars, where you have to pay more thereafter. UsedCarsForSale's model is more flexible, and the standard fee of having your cars on the platform starts at R1250. You have the option of a bespoke used car website to go along with the platform, which Gumtree does not offer. There is a lot of advantage to this because you get to dictate the look and feel of your website, unlike having a generic website where you just push stock to third party sites and hope potential leads will find it suitable to deal with a business with a substandard online home page.

Whereas Gumtree bars dealers from linking out to other platforms from the Gumtree website, UsedCarsForSale.co.za pushes your stock to an equally powerful platform called OLX. It, just like Gumtree, is an online classifieds website that sells other things besides cars, but with the benefit that your stock is pushed through from your website and immediately to UsedCarsForSale.co.za and OLX.co.za.

And as Gumtree starts charging dealers to list their cars, more and more dealers will leave the platform, and join other platforms with less requirements that pack just as much of a punch.

For buyers, most of this can be seen in a negative light because now suddenly Gumtree has less dealers and therefore less cars to choose from, while there is an increase in private sellers. We wrote of the dangers of buying cars on Gumtree through a private seller on this link: http://www.usedcarsforsale.co.za/news/29/gumtree-used-car-buyers-and-sellers-heads-up.

UsedCarsForSale.co.za eliminates that uncertainty.

Author: Pierre Theron