Q&A: Will Automobile Consignment Work For You?

Image of a Toyota truck and a tent. If you needed to sell your truck would auto consignment work for you?

In a YouTube Live Stream video recorded on May 21, 2020, Shawn Gower from Boise, Idaho-based Maverick Car Company answered several questions about what vehicle consignment is, how it works, and why it is a good option for many folks who want to sell a vehicle.

A full transcript of the presentation is below.

Video Transcription

Hello & Welcome

Armando Roggio

Welcome. I just want to thank you for joining us for today’s presentation, Will Consignment Work for You? This is a Maverick Car Company’s second how to presentation. Second live presentation that we’ve done in the month of May. And frankly, this is the beginning of what we hope will be a series of useful and informative presentations related to vehicle owning, buying, and selling. And actually, one of our most important guests I see is actually coming on right now.

Diana DeJesus

Hi.

Armando

Hi, we did start the livestream. So we are rolling.

Diana

All right.

Armando

As I was just telling the audience that’s watching us that today’s presentation will be in question and answer format. The guy doing the answering is going to be Shawn. Shawn, tell us about yourself a little bit.

Shawn Gower

Thanks Armando. My name is Shawn. I run the consignment program here at Maverick. I’m a car enthusiast who has owned, bought, sold, traded, bartered my fair share of vehicles. I’d say probably too many at this point in my life. But I’ve been at Maverick Car Company for a few years, wore a few different hats prior to jumping into the consignment department. And I’d say I truly found my home here in this department. I’m enjoying what I’m doing here.

Armando

And he does a great job of it, folks. There will be three of us, if you will, asking questions. Starting with Diana. Diana, will you take a moment and introduce yourself?

Diana

Yeah, so don’t mind me. I’m going live on my Instagram too. Hi everyone, I’m Diana. I’m the founder of Instagram page and brand called Boise Bucket List. And I’m very excited to talk about consignment and I have some audience questions, and I cannot wait to share them with you so you can learn about consignment.

Armando

Awesome. And then next I’ll also have a few questions for Shawn. And for the record, my name is Armando, I am a writer, marketer and developer, and I help Maverick Car Company with its marketing and obviously with its live streaming. And finally, the last group of questions will come from our live audience on YouTube and with Diana on Instagram, and we’ll be reading those probably at the end as they come up on YouTube or on Instagram.

Again, we are new at this. So it might be that the only people watching this live are the three of us, but if you are watching it live and you want to ask a question, we would really encourage you to do so. Diana, do I need to give you a minute to get going there on Instagram?

Diana

Yes, I have about four or five people tuning in now, and I’m going to make sure they can ask a question… I’ll put a hand up if I see any particular questions about that.

Armando

Awesome. I was going to point out, I guess, since we’re waiting a little time there as Shawn and I were going on, he was concerned about having that printer in the background, and I’m kind of in the attic dungeon here at Maverick. And so I told him not to worry about the printer.

Diana

No, I think people get that, we’re just hanging in there working from home right now or wherever our spaces.

Armando

That’s it. So, let’s go ahead and get the Q and A started if everybody’s ready. Is that good?

Diana

Yes.

Shawn

Yeah, let’s do it.

What’s In It For The Dealer?

Armando

Okay. So I’m going to ask the first question. So I have a car, I want to sell it. I’m thinking about consignment, but I don’t necessarily understand what’s in it for you, Shawn. Why does a dealership, any dealership, your dealership want to sell my car for me?

Screen capture of the consignment live stream

Shawn

That’s a great question. Well, I think first and foremost, it gives us an opportunity to do what we do best and that’s help people get the opportunity to meet, we call them friends or sometimes clients, I guess, but we would like to refer to them as friends. And it gives the dealership an opportunity to sell vehicles that we have a history of, and I think that’s super important.

A good case in point, we just recently sold an Audi actually three days ago, and it was awesome because the gentlemen that’s purchasing it, had a lot of questions about it and I was able to help the sales team by answering and just explaining very simply, hey, this vehicle is being sold. The gentleman’s actually pursuing his commercial pilot license. It’s an extra vehicle and he doesn’t need it anymore. It’s been sitting and that’s why he’s like, “Why is it so clean?” I said, “That’s just who the guy is.”

So I was able to explain that and that helped out. Obviously, as you know, we’re in business to make money. So we do make money on the consignment program as well. But I think it’s important for folks to know with our program specifically, that if we don’t sell your vehicle, we don’t make anything. And so we we’re really, really confident in what we do, and we show that by investing our money, our time upfront with the hopes to the end result of having a sold the vehicle.

What Is Vehicle Consignment?

Diana

All right, so consignment. So we talk about it and I know a little bit about it for those who are tuning in you might know. I’ve heard of it for when it comes to clothing consignment. I’ve gotten my fair share of clothing, at consignment stores in Boise and beyond. So break it down for us Shawn, what exactly is vehicle consignment?

Shawn

Well, another good question. I’ve had people say that, in fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called folks back, got a call and they say, first words, “I’ve heard of clothing consignment. How does cars work?” Virtually, it works the exact same way. The short answer I give folks is you’re allowing a professional to sell something for you. We do this every single day, that’s what business is built on, it’s selling vehicles.

So, bringing it to us ensures that it’s going to be done and done ideally without you having to… Same reason you dropped the clothes off at a consignment clothing store or furniture. You don’t want to deal with it. You drop it off with us, we handle it from start to finish, and ideally you get a phone call and pick up a check.

Diana

Oh wow. That’s ideal. Phone call, check. Nice.

Shawn

And real quick to point out one more thing on that as far as consignment goes. Vehicles specifically, vehicles and houses are typically your two biggest purchases, and the financing component for us on the consignment is a big thing. You get people come in here and they owe 30,000, $40,000 on a car and they say, “Hey, I’m having trouble selling this.” And typically, it’s a financing thing with people not wanting to go to their own banks. And so having the ability to get folks finance same day and have them drive off of the vehicle helps immensely as well.

Vehicle Consignment Save Vs. Vehicle Consignment

Diana

We got some good audience questions already.

Shawn

Oh, man.

Diana

So, do you want me to ask now or wait until the end? What do you think?

Shawn

I’m good either way, we can go to the questions you have.

Armando

Yeah, go with it if you want.

Diana

We have an audience question from Christina, Stina, hi Stina. How often are their vehicle consignment sales? Can a regular customer, like let’s say she wanted to come in with her husband buy a car at consignment? And how is it different from buying a car on auction?

Shawn

That’s a great question. So buying one of our consignment vehicles, when you come into the dealership, it would be no different than buying one of our traded in vehicles that are on our lot. It’s the same process from start to finish. The big difference again being is when someone has those specific questions on a vehicle. We have a little bit more history on those consigned vehicles than we do on the vehicles that are on our lot. But there’s no set dates for our consignment sales, they’re for sale on our lot, just as our other inventory is.

Diana

Awesome. Thank you.

Armando

Hey, can I add something to that? We’re starting to send out a weekly newsletter as well. And the weekly newsletter today featured a vehicle that is a consignment vehicle here in our lot. So from a marketing perspective and from the dealership perspective, we treat consignment vehicles just like we would a car that arrived here in some other way. In fact, sometimes better because Shawn does have the backstory.

Is Automobile Consignment Renting?

Diana

Cool, we can’t wait to hear more about the backstory. So keep staying too, because we have more from Shawn. So that’s a little transition into what I was going to ask too. I had an audience question about, is it like renting? The concept of renting a vehicle, how does that differ? Is it renting your consignment or what does that mean?

Shawn

And again, it’s no different than how we do it with our regular vehicles. There are special instructions at times with some of the higher-end vehicles, but ultimately we make sure they have a valid license, valid insurance, and that they’re here to actually pursue a purchase of a vehicle, not just here to see how fast zero to 60 is in a Tesla.

Diana

Good. That’s good to know in case someone wants to consign their Tesla, they have faith and there’s clearance to drive it. That’s great.

Shawn

Absolutely.

How Long Does Vehicle Consignment Take?

Armando

Shawn, you mentioned how long it takes to go zero to 60 in a Tesla. I have a sort of a how long question. How long does consignment take? If I had my car on Facebook Marketplace for a month and it’s not selling and I bring it to you guys, how quickly will it sell with the dealership?

screen capture of the live stream

Shawn

That’s probably my favorite question, because I think I get it about five times a day. So really, it just comes down to this. It depends on how realistic you are with what your expectations are as far as pricing goes. In short, we do our best to get someone as close to the private party value for the vehicle, if not a little more at times, sometimes a little less, depending on the market.

If you had your vehicle on Facebook Marketplace for a month, I would look at where you had at price wise and be able to give you a good idea of, hey, this is a good price and you should have been able to sell it so on and so forth. But for us, our timeline it varies because we use so many different avenues for marketing the vehicle and honestly, our reputation alone, we get a lot of walking clients just have repeats referral clientele.

So our timeline is a little bit, I would say better than those of just posting a picture on Facebook and hoping for the best. Quick story, if I may, just to kind of give you an idea. I had a gentleman, it’s been a week and a half, brought in a 2018 Rubicon. It’s lifted has all this trick stuff on it. Super nice Jeep.

And I went out and talked to him about consigning with us and we went through it and the books didn’t really apply to this vehicle because it was built up for SEMA shows. And so I said, “Well, what do you want for it?” And he told me, he said, “Hey, I want around 53 to $55,000.” And I honestly kind of chuckled because I was like, wow, that’s… Okay, well, I’ll be honest. That’s kind of uncharted waters on a Jeep Wrangler, but I think it deems it, looking at the books and everything.

And so I asked him, “Have you been trying to sell it on your own?” And he said, “Actually I had it somewhere for two months prior to trying to sell it.” And I said, “Okay, so I’m always up for a challenge.” So we talked price a little more and then I said, well, we’re going to do everything we can to market and get this thing out there and see. Within two days we had three leads on it and four days into the consignment it sold. I mean that’s a $55,000 Jeep Wrangler. So I’d say we do better than you on your own, typically.

Diana

Okay. So let’s repeat that again.

Armando

Makes sense.

Diana

To those who are tuning it a little late. Let’s repeat the timeline again, just in case someone couldn’t hear it. So they dropped a very tricked out Wrangler, people get like, what can I get that? You said, how much it costs or you were selling it for.

So you got all the photos, which Maverick does, and we’ll talk about that in marketing, but the moment it’s on the lot, what was the timeframe of it being on Fairview? Hey, look at that car. And then its selling. Let’s talk about that.

Shawn

It was bizarre. It actually came on the lot. Funny enough the first gentleman looked at it, came in to look at another Jeep saw it back here getting photos and behind it under our awning here, and was like, can I drive that? Absolutely. And in that first 24 hour period, we had three people seriously interested and then it sold on day four.

It’s pretty amazing honestly. So that happened to a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, the Audi I touched on earlier today, it actually is the first vehicle thus far that went on the lot last Friday morning. It was on the lot at about 10:00 AM and it’s sold at four o’clock.

Diana

What?

Shawn

Yeah, that was pretty cool. He’s like, “is that a record?” And I said, “I think so.” When I called him and let him know, he was pretty excited. So I’d say we’re doing pretty good. And the difference being is that was a 16, $17,000 vehicle versus a 55,000. So with everything going on in the world today, I would love to say I have a really good gauge on what’s happening in the industry, but I mean, ultimately it seems to me there’s a level of normalcy back that we’re pretty happy with.

How Can You Feel Comfortable With Automobile Consignment?

Diana

I love normalcy, yes. All right. Well, I feel like I have more of a little normal situation. From my high school vehicle that got me through law school. And then when I had to get a second vehicle, when I lived in Maine, I leaned on the men in my life. I don’t like using gender, but that’s who I actually leaned on.

So, the whole buying or selling a car process to lease on the car, just a lot of fear behind that. So me being a woman and those who are tuning in who have their own experiences with car dealerships and selling and that engagement with the potential seller, how does consignment help ease that fear, mitigate some of those challenges we feel with selling our vehicle?

Shawn

I have to say, I think this is my favorite question, because I’ve had folks on the phone that have been extremely timid. And I’d say the short answer to this is, Maverick does business the right way. It just, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you are a single mother with three children or a car guru, at the end of the day, the numbers are the numbers. We’re extremely transparent about that. We show you the numbers. If it’s something you’re not certain of, we say, “Hey, take these home here. They are. Think about it.”

I’ve even had folks come in and say, “Gosh, I was really hoping to get a little bit more.” And I say, “well, why don’t you give it a shot selling it private party? I’m happy to help you write up your ad even.” And I’ve done that, and give them some coaching and advice on how to do that. And I’ve had people literally leave here and call me the same day and say, “Yeah, I’m good. I’m just going to bring it in.” I’ve had folks try it and be successful. So we’re here to help however we can. We treat every single person that comes to the door, the exact same. So it doesn’t matter who you are, the program is the program, and we do it the right way every time.

Diana

Yes. And for me, I’ll be happy to drop off the vehicle. You sell it. I show up and say, I get a phone call, say, what a check? Thank you so much. I like that feeling, leave it to the experts as I like to say.

How Does Automobile Consignment Work When I Still Owe Money?

Armando

Shawn how do the consignment work if I still owe money on my car?Shawn

Well, it honestly work’s the same for you. It just adds a step on the back end for us. But honestly, I would say close to 70, 75% of the folks that come in with consignment vehicles owe money on their vehicles. And so we deal with that every single day. It’s not a big deal at all. It’s kind of funny. I’ll put that in the same box as, people say, “Hey, should I have my car cleaned before I bring it to you?” Or, “Do I need to pay off the loan before I bring it to you?” And neither of those are true statements. We can handle everything here.

Is Vehicle Consignment Limited To Just Cars And Trucks?

Diana

I like that. So we’re in Idaho, not only do we have vehicles, we have a lot of people here who have toys. You have the RVs, you have the razors, you have motorcycles, all these different modes of transportation and for fun. Do you only consign vehicles or other motor type of things?

Shawn

Great question. So as of now it’s vehicles, cars and trucks. But I could definitely see in the future. I’ve had enough calls for motorcycles and RVs to where I could see us being who we are, wanting to see if we could add value and help folks out. I could see us transitioning into it a little bit more, but right now we’re trying to really master the car and truck industry, vehicle industry. And then we’ll go from there.

How Are Automobile Consignments Marketed?

Diana

Oh, that gives them a stay tuned part. Stay tuned. I’m on Instagram Live. Hi, everyone on YouTube. And I’m no one to shy away from marketing. Which leads to my next question. How does marketing come into play with your consignment vehicle? What platform do you utilize? I know we have Armando here who can answer that too. But if someone were to have their vehicle consigned, how would it be marketed?

Shawn

You guys are killing it. I love these questions. These are good. These are ones that I get every day. So it’s awesome. But there are a few in here that I haven’t. So we use all major online car shopping sites, thecars.com, CarGurus, Autotrader, Craigslist, Facebook, Instagram, and I’m sure there’s a few others I’m forgetting. But I say, think of it this way. You’re getting the full benefit of a dealership marketing department. And marketing strategies are ever changing, and we adapt to the market. It’s a lot more than, as I said earlier to Armando, it’s a lot more than just an ad on Facebook or Craigslist, if you will.

Diana

I like that. I’ve seen the ads. For those who follow Maverick on Instagram and Facebook, the genius behind that is Mr. Armando himself. If you haven’t followed then, this is my plug because I love Instagram obviously, but you see the vehicles and how they look and you can imagine yourself in them. I saw that white Rubicon. Obviously you took it down, but I saw it and I was like, “Ooh, that’s quite the car.” So when it makes you stop and say, ooh, that’s what you want.

Shawn

And I have to say, shout out to Jessica who does our photos, she’s phenomenal.

Diana

Oh, she’s behind that marketing team. I love them.

Shawn

She’s so good.

Armando

I don’t know if this is the right format, but I will maybe a preview of what is to come. I will tell you that future vehicle pages on Maverick will include video, that’s coming. And it’s possible that we’re going to use a flying drone to shoot those, so coming your way.

Diana

Wait a minute, you talking about… Wait, is this an exclusive insight into…

Will I Have To Lower The Price For My Car?

Armando

Hey, I’m just going to move on to the next question. Hey Shawn, is there ever going to be a chance as I’m consigning with you that I’m going to have to sort of lower my asking price at some point?

Shawn

Fabulous question. Ideally. No, but there are times when that is necessary. But that being said, it never comes as a surprise and give you an example of that. If someone comes in and I’ll use the Toyota Tacoma for an example, and they come in and we’re looking at the market and I say, gosh, well I’ll say it’s your car Armando, and I say, “Armando, I think we could realistically sell his truck rather quickly if we get 24 to you and price it accordingly. But I think you could get as much as 25, and I’m happy to start there, but we got to see how the market plays out two weeks from now, if we’re not getting the interest that we’re looking for, the click throughs and the things that we look to gauge how things are going, then I might call you and ask you for that.”

And then it gives you the opportunity actually to say, “You know what? I don’t want to leave any money on the table. So let’s try that. That sounds good.” So yes, you will, but it will be something that, again, it’s not going to be a surprise call from me. It’s going to be something that you’re expecting, and so we talk about that upfront, if that makes sense.

Diana

Transparency, of course, I love that.

Why Does Shawn Love Consignment?

Diana

I love to affiliate myself and learn from those who are experts. Like I said earlier about me selling a car, I had to go to the experts. And Shawn, by you answering these questions, and it’s clear that you have all the enthusiasm about talking about cars. Can you tell us, why do you enjoy this part of car consignment? And do you have any particular stories of, you shared the one about the Rubicon and the Audi, but what you enjoy most about this role and if you could shed light on maybe how your background influenced that.

Shawn

Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, I love working with people and I like to help wherever and however I can. I think this program going the way we have it going now, it’s an opportunity to show the community that we do in fact, do things differently here, and that’s through and through. And it’s also an opportunity for me to make a friend, which I’ve actually made quite a few, believe it or not just doing this.

Diana

I believe it.

Shawn

And I would have to say probably my favorite thing is making that phone call with someone that’s either they’ve had their vehicle for sale for a while, they’ve had it here and it’s been a financial burden, and we’re able to get it sold for them. And being able to call them and say hey… I did have a couple that was trying to buy a home. In order to buy their house, they had to get rid of this vehicle.

And so being able to do that and do it in a really quick manner, and then make that call, I was more excited. I was literally watching across the way for the folks to walk out with the keys in their hand so I can make the call, and then I just ran outside and called.

And I think I was more excited than they were, but they later did say, “Hey, we were a lot more excited. We were almost just shocked, and you were so fired up that we were like, is everything okay? Yeah, I’m good. Everything’s good.” But yeah, in short, it’s pretty awesome to get to do thing, what you genuinely like to do. And it’s helping people for me, and I get to do that every day, and I love it.

Diana

You and the whole team.

Shawn

Absolutely.

Diana

Shout out to Freeman. Freeman’s Is not really into the whole Instagram being on video.

Armando

That’s not his gig.

Diana

That’s not his gig, but for those who have gone to Maverick and you would pop in, you will see him sometimes, maybe his wife, but that is the Maverick way.

How A Sales Team Helps With Automobile Consignment

Shawn

If I have time, I do want to add something else. One more value to the consignment program that I don’t know that gets enough attention. The reality is that our sales team is amazing and they come to me when a consignment comes in and they actually ask me, “Hey, Shawn, what’s going on with that Audi? Can you give me a little backstory on this? I have a client.”

So they’re already starting to try to sell your vehicle before it’s even on the lot, and that is not a joke at all. They’re awesome. So I just wanted to say that because although I get the vehicles sold, I’m not actually the one selling them. I’m bringing them in, ideally pricing them right, and giving the right information to the team to have them be able to do their job and do what they do best.

Diana

So they’re storytellers. They love to hear the stories, which I can attest to that. So when I dropped off the 4Runner, I told, is it Crystal?

Shawn

Yeah.

Diana

I told Crystal, Crystal, I’m dropping off Stormy. And she’s like, and I told her why it was named Stormy. And she was so, I get high of people who want to know about stories, so she was so eager to learn about Stormy’s, like her name, where it came from. So I saw that with Crystal and somebody that I met just randomly, also felt that from Crystal. That’s one of many of the sales team. But storytelling is the jam.

All right, so for those who are trickling in, I don’t have any questions, but please comment, if you have any questions for Shawn and for Armando, we’re on live. So I will be able to tell them if you have a question, so just don’t be afraid to post. Someone said, thank you for doing this live. They really appreciated the knowledge.

Wrapping Up

Shawn

Absolutely. Thanks for tuning in.

Armando

I guess I’ll add this and then we should probably, unless we have some more questions, come to a close, but this is something that we want to keep doing at Maverick, which is to answer questions. So as you comment, whether it’s with Diana or with us on YouTube, tell us some of the other things you’d like us to cover. If you have questions about the automobile industry, we’d be more than happy to do a Q and A like this covering just about any topic. One of the topics probably want to know, as Shawn mentioned he has owned many cars. The man has had, is it 50 personal vehicles? Is that true?

Shawn

53.

Diana

53?

Shawn

53.

Armando

No one’s counting though.

Shawn

My wife is actually counting. I actually say, “I don’t know. It’s like 25.” She’s like, “It’s 53 to be exact.”

Diana

Oh wow. She is exact.

Armando

So, you know what Shawn’s really telling you is that you can sign your car, if nothing else, he’ll buy it.

Shawn

There’s a good chance. There is a good chance.

Diana

Awesome.

Armando

No, just kidding. Well, listen, I don’t have any more questions over here on the YouTube side, if there’s nothing else on the Instagram side, I think we should just say thank you for everyone who did watch us live.

Diana

Thank you.

Armando

And if you have, please do comment even in the future comment, and let us know if there are things we can cover for you. Thank you so much.

Diana

Good bye.

Armando

Everybody have an awesome evening.

Shawn

Thank you all. I appreciate it Armando.

Diana

Have a great weekend….Now leave the meeting.