7:00 am, April 3, 2015
A NEW trade-to-trade online portal which goes live this summer has got off to en encouraging start.
Car Dealer magazine exclusively revealed the news that the former management team of Autotrade-mail – Kevin Watson, Laura Cannon and Gee Pugsley – were setting up www.cartotrade.com
Within days of the story breaking, Watson says hundreds of motor-trade professionals registered their interest on the website.
‘And that figure does not include those dealers who phoned their office to give us their best wishes,’ he said.
The trio are now contacting dealers – they say they are concentrating on the most professional businesses within the UK, both independent and franchised – to add to their customer base. The site will go live in June.
Pugsley says: ‘It’s a great feeling to have so many positive conversations. Many dealers have already said they are going to be placing their trade stock on to our system in June when we go live and this will be music to the ears of our buyers.’
Cannon added: ‘We’ve been bowled over by the encouraging comments we’ve received from dealers and grateful for the time they have given us. And it’s also been nice to hear from so many familiar names within the industry.’
Duncan Godfrey, director of Godfreys of Horsham, passed his comments to the team after seeing the article. He wrote: ‘My grateful thanks to the Cartotrade team… I hope we can return to the days when cars were physical, subscribers were motor dealers, not somebody trying to sell somebody else’s car without ever having seen it. I can only wish you every success.”
Watson said work was continuing to ensure the website was fresh and functional in time for launch day. ‘We are extremely lucky to have support and feedback helping us to deliver a quality, user-friendly yet innovative website,’ he said. ‘There are lots of clever initiatives being incorporated that we know from our experience are going to be genuinely useful for our members.’
The Cartotrade team estimate that it’s going to take up until the middle of May to contact most dealers within the UK. Interested dealers can speed things up by registering their interest at www.cartotrade.com
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