A weekly round-up of the UK’s remarketing and used values news. This week including: Manheim deals, BCA and CDA analysis and an upgrade for motors.co.uk.
RAA for Manheim, plus investment turns first sales
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The Retail Automotive Alliance (RAA) has announced a remarketing deal with Manheim.
The RAA comprises 23 independent dealer groups (around 200 forecourts) and the deal is expected to see Manheim remarketing more than 25,000 cars annually, many from part exchanges.
The deal will also include the remarketing of 1,500 light vans and trucks and a series of retail-ready sales through Manheim Online, making use of the company’s Simulcast platform.
November also saw the first sales from the wewantanycar.com website, owned by the Car Group Limited, in which Manheim invested in October.
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By GlobalDataAlthough the Car Group continues to operate as a standalone business, all vehicles acquired by the website – estimated at 400 units a week – will be remarketed by Manheim.
BCA: Commercial vehicles steady, 2014 another bumper year for used
The average value at auction for used commercial vehicles dropped by 0.8% month-on-month, but rose by 20.2% year-on-year, in November, according to British Car Auctions (BCA). It was also the fourth month in a row that average values have surpassed £5,000. Average sale against CAP was 103.4%, up from 99.98% for November 2012.
However, ex-fleet and lease vehicles saw an average sale value of £6,820 for the month, up 4.6% month-on-month and 33.5% year-on-year. Sale against CAP was 103.23% and sale against manufacturer’s retail price was 38.40%.
Part-exchange vans sold at an average of £3,454 during the month, down 1.3% on October but up 18.7% year-on-year. Sale against CAP was 104.12%.
Meanwhile, BCA has also said it expects the rise in the value of used cars to continue into 2014. Currently, ex-fleet and lease vehicle values (first time to market) are 15% above this time last year, with dealer part-exchange values up 20%.
Although part-exchange volumes have risen, ex-fleet volumes have not and BCA expects the supply of 3-5 year-old cars to remain constrained until 2015.
Woodward’s de-fleet analysis
Roger Woodward, managing director of CD Auction Group, has also predicted 2014 may bring a "perfect storm" of constricted supply and rising demand in the used vehicle market.
"In Q1 of 2011 (3 yrs ago) fleet new car activity was pretty flat (up 1% over 2010) and retail activity slow (down 18% over 2010) in a post-scrappage dip," said Woodward. "These are the cars that should now be coming to franchised used forecourts and are the core of the used market. They are going to be in short supply.
"At the same time, our professional fleet vendors say there is still an underlying reluctance among companies to invest in new cars, despite the huge incentives on offer from the manufacturers.
"The irony is that this is a good market to defleet into, if only fleet operators could overcome their natural caution. With some signs of economic recovery this could stimulate retail demand, pushing residual values even higher."
Motors.co.uk upgrades search facility
Car retailer motors.co.uk has launched an online ‘Smart Search’ function alongside a new logo and website design.
Display advertising has also been removed from the website.
Andy Coulthurst, managing director of motors.co.uk, said: "Our home page is the first impression our customers have of the site and we wanted to create a clean and clear place from which they could start their search. We believe that giving undue prominence to display advertising and home page takeovers makes homepages look ugly and distracts users unnecessarily from the thing they came to do in the first place, namely find the right car as easily as possible."
richard.brown@timetric.com
