CD Auction Group has launched a new platform to help dealers sell and source stock with confidence.
Called Vehicle Tradex, the new product is a dealer-to-dealer used car trading platform, which has been designed around dealers’ needs when it comes to managing trade inventories in an easy and secure way.
‘CD Auction Group was up until the latter part of last year was trade-to-trade only, and we dealt with contracts, finance, corporates, rental businesses and more,’ explained the firm’s commercial director, Graham Howes, on Car Dealer Live (which you can watch at the top of this story).
‘Up to now we have stayed away from the part-exchange environment on the basis of consistency. But we have seen what other firms have been doing and we wanted to do something different.
‘This is how Vehicle Tradex came into being,’ he said. ‘It runs as a separate business stream of the business on its own platform, its own identity.’
The platform launched in January this year off the back of a very successful year for CD Auction Group, despite the industry being disrupted with the coronavirus pandemic. It even removed listing and selling fees on the platform to help dealers during the third lockdown.
‘There’s never a good time to launch a platform like this, but we bit the bullet and got on with it,’ said Howes. ‘We’ve seen some good traction and good acceptance – we’ve added over 1,000 new buyers to the platform in the last six months of last year and 370 this year.’
I’ve seen and done it myself the old way. And I’ve seen just how easy it is to do with the digital route with no travelling, no wind, no rain, and very accurate descriptions of vehicles.
Joining Howes on the show was account director James Dower who joined the firm last year. He added: ‘What’s really interesting is we’re starting to see a new generation of used car group buyer – they’re in that digital space anyway. So it’s about the ease of being able to get the information they want as quickly as they want.
‘We are starting to see some of the people who had been traditional physical auction, sort of a cup of coffee bacon sandwich and spend the day in an auction hall kind of buyer who are embracing the online method.
‘Having been in the industry for the last 30 years, I’ve seen and done it myself the old way. And I’ve seen just how easy it is to do with the digital route with no travelling, no wind, no rain, and very accurate descriptions of vehicles. We’re starting to see some of the more traditional people embracing it quite happily.’
Vehicle Tradex is all about simplicity, the pair explained. Dealers who are seeking to sell vehicles can choose to list them from their own forecourt and an independent inspector, on behalf of CD Auctions will appraise each vehicle within 48 hours. The inspector will also photograph the vehicles.
Dealers can also choose to send the vehicle to a CD Auction site. Here it’ll be inspected, photographed and cleaned before being listed for sale, and dealers get 28 days of free storage.
The pair also discussed how the last 12 months have been for the 30-year-old business, how stocks profiles are changing and how dealers can get sign up to Vehicle Tradex.
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