With millions of users and hundreds of thousands of cars advertised on their web pages, the classified websites are a vital tool in the car dealer sales arsenal.
The best have easy-to-search sites, great data insight and – most importantly – millions of potential customers visiting them every month.
This is one of the most competitive categories, and the winner was Auto Trader, which has served dealers with huge amounts of leads since lockdown and continued to support its partners.
Sales and service director Darren Moon told us the award meant so much because it had been voted for by Car Dealer’s readers.
‘Online advertising is the core of our business, and to be recognised for it is absolutely amazing, truly fantastic,’ he said, attributing its success as a business and what made it so special to its audience.
‘We try to just balance that consumer and those retailers and put the two together to be a transparent marketplace.’
Although initially in lockdown it experienced a drop of some 40 per cent among its readership, it also saw pent-up demand, which it flagged up with dealers and was something that bore fruit.
It gave financial support to dealers throughout the lockdown and provided weekly webinars plus updates, all of which encouraged the industry to hold its nerve.
‘This is a great industry that we all work in, and we’ve just tried to support the industry as much as we can,’ he said.
‘We know it’s a resilient industry, but to come out of it as we have I think is credit to both everyone in Auto Trader and everyone who works in this industry as well.’
He added: ‘The used car market is still incredibly strong.
‘Supplies have now started to come through. Margins are holding up really well. We’re seeing valuations where like-for-like prices are up about six per cent year on year as an overall.
‘But generally, we’re seeing a very buoyant market that still has got that pent-up demand coming through.’
Particularly noticeable has been people coming to the market for the first time because of a fear of using public transport – in all, some 348,000 hours a day were spent in research on Auto Trader by consumers in August.
And Moon was confident that the used car sales market will still be strong going into November and December, thanks to factors such as extended PCPs coming to an end and the vehicles flooding through the market.
You can find out more in our special winners video above.
- W: autotrader.co.uk
- T: 0161 669 9888 / 020 3747 7100
For more Car Dealer Power winners visit the dedicated section here.
