Motor retail tech firm iVendi is celebrating more than £1.3bn of online and showroom vehicle sales being made by dealers via its platform over the past 12 months.
The figure is a £200m increase over the previous year and reflects actual sales of more than 120,000 cars, vans and motorcycles, it said.
Chief executive James Tew, pictured right with chief operating officer Richard Tavernor, said: ‘The fact that more business went through the platform during the pandemic than the previous 12 months shows the extent to which technology has sustained dealers through the crisis.
‘Car retailers have spent more than half of the past year being able to only sell online, and there is widespread recognition that the market has markedly fallen, but dealers using our technology have been able to buck that trend.’
He said iVendi had decided at the start of the pandemic to be as proactive as possible with dealers, giving them tools and support to help them survive and thrive where possible.
‘Especially, we made the Digital Deal feature of iVendi Transact free to dealers from its launch last April through to the end of the first lockdown, and it was widely adopted across our retailer customer base.
‘The key benefit of the Digital Deal during the pandemic is that it works equally well in a showroom or online situation, reflecting our “connected retailing” approach. Our £1.3bn of sales are genuinely omni-channel in this respect.’
He added: ‘What we’ve seen over the last 12 months is that when lockdowns have forced dealers into online sales, they’ve moved very quickly to embrace new and effective digitisation.’
The milestone comes on the heels of news that iVendi’s staff numbers are set to nearly double over the next three years.
