How a Last Minute Bid Saved my Business

Dealing with cars is not an easy business anyone can tell you that, it always involves a lot of marketing skills and perseverance.

My car garage deals with all kinds of vehicles from new imported cars to second hand and also trade-ins.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a knock-on effect on the car business with very few willing to spend an extra coin on buying a car.

A file image of a car bazaar.

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This has led me to look for alternatives to keeping my business afloat and withering this economic turmoil that has caused many redundancies and furloughs across the globe.

I resorted to buying cars on a bargain so that I can sell them at a cheaper price that is slightly lower than my competitors.

Many cases have been reported from employees of Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority and Container Freight Station.

This has, in turn, slowed down operations, at the usually busy port, as government agencies and private companies battle to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Many of the cars that I had ordered from Japan arrived but have been stuck in the port leaving my garage with no new cars and limited options for my customers to choose from.

During my online searches at home, I managed to stable upon a gold mine of buying used cars that were being auctioned.

The auction sale was online since the government banned public gatherings of any nature in a bid to promote social distancing and help mitigate the spread of the virus.

I logged on to their website and decided to monitor how things are done before I could dip my hands into the honey pot.

After learning a few tricks here and there on online auctions I decided to go ahead and proceed to buy some cars at a bargain.

I placed a bid on seven cars that were going on a throwaway price and I knew I could make a killing because they were hot property in the market.

Unfortunately, I was not the only one who had eyes on the cars with a number of people also placing their bids.

I pulled out a little trick off my sleeve as the bidding website allowed one to pay for a car if the reserved price was met.

A number of people had also learned this trick but what saved me and my business was my Co Operative bank visa card that had outstanding real-time processing speed with an average authorisation response time of under two seconds.

With this insane processing speed, I managed to get all the seven cars and was able to sell three in two weeks which kept my business afloat.

The money enabled me to pay my workers and they also got to keep their jobs all thanks to the fast Co Operative bank transaction time.