Five years ago, the idea of buying a car without ever sitting in it, turning the key, or kicking the tires would have sounded insane to most people. Today? It’s the norm. Carvana, Vroom, CarMax’s online platform, AutoTrader, Cars.com, and — yes — Facebook Marketplace and eBay Motors have fundamentally rewired how Americans buy cars. We’ve been in the auto transport business since 1999, and we’ve watched this shift happen in real time. The numbers on our platform don’t lie — roughly 40% of the vehicles we ship today are tied to an online purchase where the buyer and seller are in different states. That’s up from maybe 10% a decade ago. It’s a seismic change, and it’s rewriting the rules of auto transport demand.
Let me give you the scale of what’s happening. Carvana alone sold over 400,000 vehicles in 2025. CarMax moved another 750,000+, with a growing percentage of those being cross-market online sales. Facebook Marketplace — which most people think of as a place to sell used furniture — has become one of the largest peer-to-peer vehicle sales platforms in the country. And then you’ve got the enthusiast platforms: Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, Hemmings — where people routinely buy $30,000, $50,000, even $200,000 vehicles sight-unseen based on photos and an inspection report. Every single one of those cross-state transactions generates a vehicle that needs to get from Point A to Point B. Most buyers aren’t flying across the country to drive their purchase home. They’re shipping it.
This has created demand patterns we’ve never seen before in our 25+ years of doing this. The old model of auto transport was dominated by dealers moving inventory, snowbirds shipping seasonally, and military families on PCS orders. Those segments are still huge — but the online buyer segment has exploded past all of them in growth rate. On our marketplace, first-time shippers now account for nearly half of all bookings. These are people who have never shipped a vehicle before, have no frame of reference for pricing or timelines, and are often navigating the process while simultaneously closing a vehicle purchase with a stranger in another state.
Mistake number one — and this is the big one — is not factoring shipping costs into the purchase price. You find a 2022 Toyota 4Runner on Facebook Marketplace in Phoenix for $3,000 less than anything local. Great deal, right? Maybe. But if you’re in Boston, shipping that vehicle is going to run $1,200–$1,500. That $3,000 savings just became $1,500. Still worth it? Probably. But I’ve seen buyers pull the trigger on a vehicle that’s $800 cheaper than local options and then discover that shipping costs eat the entire savings. Always get a shipping quote before you commit to buying a vehicle out of state. Our platform gives you an instant quote in under 60 seconds.
Mistake number two is timing. Online buyers often don’t realize that auto transport isn’t like ordering from Amazon. You’re not getting next-day delivery. Standard pickup windows are 3–7 days after booking, and during peak seasons it can stretch to 7–12 days. A carrier needs to be routed through your pickup location, the vehicle needs to be loaded alongside other vehicles headed in the same direction, and the transit itself takes time — a coast-to-coast shipment is typically 7–10 days door to door. Plan accordingly. Factor in two to three weeks from purchase to having the vehicle in your driveway.
Mistake number three is skipping the pre-purchase inspection. This isn’t technically a shipping issue, but we see the fallout constantly. Someone buys a car on Facebook Marketplace sight-unseen, has it shipped 1,500 miles, and it arrives with mechanical problems the seller didn’t disclose. Before you buy any vehicle online — especially from a private seller — pay $150–$200 for an independent pre-purchase inspection. Companies like Lemon Squad or a local mechanic will save you from a nightmare. The $150 inspection fee is the best insurance policy in the car-buying world.
Here’s what the online buying boom means for the carrier side. More vehicles being shipped means more demand for carrier capacity. That’s generally good for the industry — carriers have more loads to choose from. But it also means popular routes get congested during peak buying seasons. Tax refund season in February and March? Massive spike in online car purchases and a corresponding spike in transport demand. Our AI marketplace handles this by dynamically pricing based on real-time carrier availability and route demand.
For first-time shippers — here’s the streamlined version. First, get a binding quote before or immediately after purchasing the vehicle. Second, coordinate with the seller on a 3–5 day pickup window for flexibility. Third, make sure the vehicle is accessible and drivable — if it doesn’t run, tell us upfront so we can arrange a carrier with a winch. Fourth, document the vehicle’s condition with photos before shipping and compare when it arrives.
One thing I want to address directly: the trust factor. When you buy a car online and ship it, you’re trusting two separate parties with a significant amount of money. We can’t help you vet your seller, but we can absolutely eliminate the trust gap on the shipping side. Our marketplace model means verified, vetted carriers bid on your load directly. You see real pricing from real carriers with real safety records and insurance. After shipping over 235,000 vehicles, we’ve built a platform specifically designed for the way people buy cars today — not the way they bought them in 2005.
If you’ve got a vehicle purchase pending — or you’re browsing listings right now and wondering what shipping would cost — jump on our platform and get a quote. It takes less than a minute, it’s binding, and it’ll give you the full picture of what that out-of-state deal actually costs when you factor in transport. The best deal on a car isn’t just about the sticker price. It’s about the total cost to get that vehicle into your garage.