Two of the main reasons cars get rejected from Bring A Trailer

One reason sellers can easily fix.

If you’ve ever submitted your car to BringATrailer.com, got rejected, and wondered why, one (or both) of these reasons is probably why. The Smoking Tire recently had BAT’s co-founder Randy Nonnenberg on the podcast to talk about anything and everything cars and in the middle of their conversation, Nonnenberg revealed two obvious reasons cars are turned away.

Check out that bit of the conversation below.

Here’s what Nonnenberg said verbatim.

“People ask us all the time what are the main reasons cars get turned away and two of the big ones are it’s a bad car, it’s not something you’d want or it’s way overpriced.

And frankly, if either of those showed up in a classified it doesn’t really solve it, then you have a bunch of overpriced cars that sit there forever.”

And if you think about it, Bring A Trailer does a balancing act of creating the right mix of supply and demand.

First, there’s the demand addressed by Nonnenberg above. Bring A Trailer is known for their curated and diverse mix of automobiles ready to bid on at any one time. Their curation team is not going to approve a car that there’s no demand for. Also, they won’t approve a car overpriced that, even if there is a demand, it’s not going to work out.

Then, there’s the supply which is something Bring A Trailer does well and is a clue how to grab the curation team’s attention.

Towards the end of the podcast a listener asks,

“What’s your strategy for balancing high dollar items versus lowish dollar submissions? Does site traffic alone correlate what gets accepted or denied?”

to which Nonnenberg replies,

“We don’t shoot for only high-dollar, we don’t shoot for firmly low dollar, we shoot for a good mix.

We like a mix. As you can see around me I’ve always liked cars that are $10,000 and I’ve always liked cars that are $80,000 and it’s just like there’s kind of something for everybody.

So, the main curation mantra for us is interesting stuff.

It’s not related to cost necessarily.

We like to have a great mix and that’s good for traffic, that’s good for interest level, and that’s good for the long-term health of the site.“

Knowing these reasons, how can I improve my chances to get on Bring A Trailer.

First, as Nonnenberg said, bring something interesting to the table. While a bog-standard Ford Maverick sedan with a three-speed automatic might not be approved, a Grabber edition coupe in excellent condition might squeak by.

And the easiest one way to improve your chances is being flexible with the price. You might have one of five special edition Acura Integra Type Rs, but if you ask for a million dollar reserve and are unwilling to budge, you’ll be rejected for sure.