Disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all areas of the modern dealership; from how sales staff interact with customers, to the safety procedures that aftersales teams have implemented while inspecting vehicles.
And the team responsible for sourcing and selling second-hand vehicles is not immune to these impacts either.
Dealerships across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to source used car stock, and in turn, have increased their demand for everything from demonstrator models to older second-hand vehicle cars that are still in good condition.
In this article, we look to explore the factors that have caused the second- hand market to explode in growth and how dealers can leverage classified platforms to meet growing customer demand and take advantage of the second-hand car gold rush.
Addressing customer demand
According to Gumtree’s Auto Barometer Q2 report, Gumtree Cars recorded over 155 million automotive searches between April- June 2020, an increase of 19% versus Q1. As sales of new vehicles across the country continue
to decline, consumers and dealers alike have driven towards the second- hand economy to save money, without compromising on quality.
With travel restrictions in place, we’ve seen an indication that customers are seeking alternatives when it comes to how they can travel. Over the recent quarter, searches on Gumtree for 4×4 (up 60%) and SUVs (up 75%) have continued to rise, advantageous dealers could look to classified platforms in order to source vehicles that have towing capabilities, knowing that customers are looking for these items.
Proactive dealers can further build and extend relationships directly with their customers this way, managing the search on their customers behalf, negotiating price through their preferred finance provider and working with their customers to generate a quick sale – providing the best outcomes possible for the dealer, private seller and customer.
With the increase of customer searches and demand, dealers should look to tap into their existing customer bases and extend their service offering.
Extending the network
Using classified platforms as a means of tracking down private listings is nothing new, in fact, there is a long- standing tradition of dealerships leveraging these platforms and systems to assist in searching for stock.
With more than 1600 dealers across Australia using the Gumtree platform to reach customers directly, we are continuing to find alternative ways to assist and streamline our support to this group.
To do this, we have introduced our free Dealer Central service which has been designed as an inventory management platform, that helps our dealers more efficiently create, manage and optimise their stock levels.
With real-time reporting and tracking stock over time, this level of insight will help dealers more effectively identify, seek out and prioritise certain stock to drive sales.
As the #1 place for privately listed cars, dealers have access to a broad range of used cars across the site, at a variety of price points. For instance, the most common marque listed for sale in the last six months is the reliable Toyota (125,825), closely followed by Holden (100,870) and Ford (70,769) which continue to dominate.
There is no doubt that the automotive industry has changed dramatically through COVID, customer buying behaviour has changed and we have needed to shift our offering in order to stay ahead of the market.
As second-hand cars become scarce, these insights will become more valuable for dealers to ensure they stay top of mind for well-informed automotive buyers across the country.
This column by Gumtree Cars Head of Motors Richard DiCello originally appeared on page 10 of the September issue of AutoTalk Australia magazine.
