Selling your car can feel like a daunting process; there are over 400,000 car adverts on Auto Trader, 190,000 car listings on eBay and social media is a massive marketplace too, with over 750,000 #carforsale posts on Instagram and over 58 million views of #carforsale videos on TikTok.
With so much competition in these spaces, trying to get cut-through with your own car advert is tricky. Google searches are up by 50% year-on-year for “sell my car quicker” – a clear indication that many individuals are seeking out ways to improve their car advert and speed up the process.
One of the best ways to ensure your car advert isn’t ignored is to make it as visually impactful as possible. Consumers have become used to such high quality digital content that poor quality photos in a second-hand listing are easily scrolled past, or can even cause potential buyers to mistrust an advert.
Auto Trader spoke to Pascal Hochstrasser, a TikTok car photography expert, to reveal his top five tips and tricks for making your second-hand car advert stand out from the hundreds of thousands of others already out there.
1. Five most important car photo angles – “The main angles for full-car shots include the ¾ front view, ¾ rear view, full front view, full rear view and side view. It’s also important to get down low when taking your photos, you should take photos at the same level as the car, instead of standing up and taking photos looking down.”
2. Make it work in portrait – “Honestly, portrait photos are much more important than they were a few years ago due to smartphones. But most car pictures are still landscape – so getting a combination of both types of shot, for each angle of the car is vital.”
3. Include close-up detail shots – “What’s special about your car? Does it have any USP’s, like ceramic brakes or carbon seats? Make sure that any unique details, such as the steering wheel, gearstick, logos or the external wheels are included in crisp detail in a close up. People love nice detail shots, so include as many as you can!”
4.The biggest mistake is a busy background – “The mistake most people make when capturing images of their car is to shoot the photos somewhere where there’s too many other things going on which take the attention of the viewer. Use a clean and calm location, sometimes even a normal wall is good enough! Less is more, this is about the car and the car only – so let it take centre stage.”
Embed: @phpicsphotography https://www.instagram.com/p/CmZXhoTtuOo/
5. Soft sunshine makes all the difference – “You should always take pictures in soft lighting, either very early in the morning around sunrise or in the evening just before the sun sets. A clear sky in summer at midday for example will create harsh light, and glare from the car will affect how it looks in your pictures.”
When it comes to a second-hand car listing, Pascal’s advice is to keep it real. He says “If you pay attention to the exposure settings on your camera whilst you’re taking the photo, and make sure you’ve focused the image before you hit capture, you should be good to leave your images alone! You can use portrait mode to blur the background of any close up shots, but remember less is more with everything else. Listing your car in a second-hand marketplace is about honesty, you’re simply selling your car to a new owner, so don’t retouch your images – keep them real. Buyers will respond to adverts that showcase all the important angles, the interior and any special features in clear images that don’t look fake.
Below are the angles and types of images I would use if I was creating a second-car advert…”
Exterior shots:
Interior shots:
