10:00 am, September 10, 2018
A ‘NOTICEABLE SHIFT’ in dealer attitudes towards online motor finance has been emerging in 2018, with an increasing realisation that it can open up a whole new used car market, according to Startline Motor Finance.
Chief executive Paul Burgess, pictured, said more dealers now believed that online motor finance could potentially attract a whole new group of customers who weren’t necessarily the same ones who would buy a used car from them.
‘The difference we have seen is that a year ago, most dealers who offered an online finance option believed they were simply shifting some of their showroom business online, so tended to offer fairly rudimentary motor finance options through their website, offering perhaps one lender with a basic HP product.
‘Now, there is an understanding emerging that this is frequently new and incremental business, that customers who want to finance their car online are often quite different. They are experienced and web-savvy and, as such, are expecting a choice of dealer finance options to be offered. That means different products and different lenders.
‘Certainly, we are seeing a situation where many of the dealers with which we work are rapidly increasing the sophistication of their online motor finance, with a noticeable shift since the start of the year.’
Dealers were increasingly looking to offer a range of risk and rate options online, and Startline had been investing heavily in IT in recent months, Burgess said, partially in response to this shift in dealer attitudes.
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