AutoWeb has taken its CarZeus vehicle acquisition business to a third market: Houston.
CarZeus buys cars directly from consumers and resells them in the wholesale market.
AutoWeb purchased CarZeus from founder Phil Kandera and McCombs Family Partners in August.
The platform’s first market was San Antonio. In November, AutoWeb expanded CarZeus to Austin, Texas. It is serving the Austin and Houston markets remotely at the San Antonio location until physical locations are added in those cities.
“AutoWeb’s approach of leveraging our consumer audience for vehicle acquisition has had a consequential impact on the unit economics of the business in the markets where we offer this service, which is why we are excited to push ahead with another market for our vehicle acquisition business in Texas,” AutoWeb president and chief executive officer Jared Rowe said in a news release.
“This expansion not only allows us to cater to the needs of consumers in another important community for CarZeus, but it also reflects what we believe is our highly efficient and scalable ability to engage and curate an audience of those intent on selling their vehicles,” Rowe said.
He later added: "It appears that consumers are increasingly drawn to our approach of vehicle acquisition.
“In addition to connecting with them using their individual engagement preferences, we focus on the transaction at hand instead of trying to sell them another car — and this shared goal ultimately enables us to better serve them,” Rowe said. “We believe that this audience appreciates the streamlined process CarZeus provides, with the ability to leave an appointment with money in hand.”
CarGurus has brought its Instant Max Cash Offer to the West Coast, announcing Tuesday that the all-digital car-selling solution is now available in California.
Instant Max Cash Offer, which is powered by CarGurus subsidiary CarOffer, allows dealers to bid on and acquire used cars online from consumers.
The platform blends CarGurus’ consumer-facing marketplace with CarOffer’s dealer-to-dealer vehicle bid system known as the Buying Matrix.
It launched in July and has since spread to 23 states and Washington, D.C.
“Consumers have plenty of options when it comes to selling their car online, but CarGurus Instant Max Cash Offer is the only destination that delivers on everything consumers are looking for in a car selling experience today: ease of use, convenience, efficiency, transparency and, of course, the highest offer,” CarGurus president and chief operating officer Sam Zales said in a news release.
“With CarGurus Instant Max Cash Offer, our wholesale-retail integrated solution allows us to actually solve for two critical issues: ensuring consumers get a premium offer based on live dealer bids, not an algorithm, followed by vehicle pickup, paperwork and payment; and providing dealers with access to a new source of inventory supply in an extremely constrained market,” Zales said. “We are thrilled to bring this to the consumers and dealers of California so they can take advantage of this win-win transaction solution.”
CarOffer reached a notable milestone, as the CarGurus’ subsidiary announced on Tuesday it has enrolled 10,000 dealer rooftops on its automated instant wholesale vehicle trade platform.
According to a news release, CarOffer enrolled dealer rooftops are defined as those for which CarOffer and the applicable dealer have signed an enrollment agreement to participate on the CarOffer platform and CarOffer has entered such dealer’s rooftops in its sales management system.
The company added that the tally also includes dealers that have signed an enrollment agreement but have not yet completed CarOffer’s onboarding process.
CarOffer highlighted its benchmark comes only two-and-a-half years after launching its Buying Matrix platform, a stock market-like approach to vehicle ordering that can provide dealers with an instant, efficient and cost-effective way to buy, sell and trade inventory.
The company indicated the adoption rate of the CarOffer platform has snowballed as dealers look for ways to effectively meet their local shoppers’ needs while simultaneously competing with national online retailers for “direct from consumer” inventory.
CarOffer also explained there is a flywheel effect to the Buying Matrix: as the volume of active dealers on the platform grows, it simultaneously produces more options for dealers to acquire and offload used inventory from other dealers as well as consumers.
“It’s hard to believe that CarOffer’s first transaction was only two and a half years ago,” CarOffer founder and chief executive officer Bruce Thompson said in the news release. “When we launched the product, we weren’t sure how quickly dealers would adopt an inventory trading platform completely foreign to anything they had ever encountered.
“That said, it was evident the industry needed a radical change, as decades-old inventory sourcing and liquidation methods were inefficient, manual and time intensive. So, we put everything on the line to create a platform that is one of a kind,” he said.
“I am so proud of the CarOffer teammates who have supported our vision from the very beginning, as this milestone would not have been possible without their ambitions and tenacity,” Thompson continued. “We always had lofty aspirations but enrolling 10,000 dealer rooftops this early in 2022 exceeded even our highest expectations. I owe everything to the incredible team we have built and truly believe this is the only group of individuals that could have pulled off this significant achievement.”
CarOffer reiterated its platform is geared to work much like today’s stock market, applying instant liquidity and values to vehicles.
• On the buy side, dealers can place limit orders and quotas for units they wish to acquire through a user-friendly interface that allows them to set desired pricing, equipment, mileage and condition of the vehicles they want to purchase; the automated technology fulfills the orders seamlessly.
• On the sell side, dealers simply login to see pending live offers that have been automatically placed on their inventory units. They accept offers they want and check out via a familiar shopping cart checkout process.
Last year, CarGurus launched CarGurus Instant Max Cash Offer that can allow a consumer to sell a vehicle in seconds to one of CarOffer’s growing network of dealer partners.
CarGurus Instant Max Cash Offer is powered by the CarOffer Buying Matrix and automatically can matche the customer’s vehicle to the highest buy offer in the platform.
The company went on to mention that all CarOffer dealer customers can benefit from a streamlined logistical support process that includes the handling of transportation, titling, and inspections all delivered on one bill of sale. This facilitates nationwide trading to maximize inventory selection and efficiency.
“Going from 0 to 10,000 enrollments in such a short period is a testament to the hard work of the sales team and the entire organization,” CarOffer chief sales officer Mark Bland said.
“Reaching a milestone like this is a reflection of dedicated efforts across the company combined with our outstanding product performance and partnership with the CarGurus team. I am extremely proud of the team’s performance and the impact we have made on the industry,” Bland added.
For more information, visit www.caroffer.com.
Tight supplies and more competition for a shrinking pool of cars.
That’s the story in the wholesale vehicle market these days
Auto auctions had approximately 227,000 sales of vehicles up to 8 years in age last month, which was down nearly …
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For dealers looking for a specific used vehicle to satisfy a potential buyer request, an integration involving CognitionDigital.io and TradePending could be of assistance, especially if the used-car manager is looking for the vehicle currently owned by a private individual.
CognitionDigital.io announced a new integration between its dynamic creative ad platform and TradePending’s valuation and merchandising API. The integration revealed on Wednesday is geared to power a unique message to car owners targeting specific vehicle models for dealer acquisition.
The move blends the tools from TradePending, a provider of vehicle valuation and merchandising software to dealerships, with the advertising platform CognitionDigital.io, which can generate and serve content using life-stage signals designed specifically to integrate with Amazon’s suite of Ad Tech solutions.
Combining the power of Amazon audiences, the companies said through a news release that CognitionDigital.io’s customized ads that match audience segments and TradePending’s real-time market data significantly can boost a dealer’s ability to acquire the right inventory through the consumer trade-in market.
One dealer using the tool boosted vehicle acquisition from an average of 12 vehicles to 89 vehicles per month, according to the news release.
“CognitionDigital.io is thrilled to be able to remove barriers between customers and dealerships,” CognitionDigital.io chief executive officer Carson Henry said. “Pairing our vehicle acquisition templates with TradePending’s API creates a unique solution that provides invaluable information to consumers about the potential value of their vehicle very early in the engagement process.”
For more information visit: https://www.cognitiondigital.io.
Even before the recent used-car supply changes, dealers were increasingly turning to a variety of channels to acquire wholesale inventory.
And these days, the “buy anywhere” approach is of paramount importance as traditional wholesale sources have limited supply.
With that in mind, vAuto has launched ProfitTime’s Global Acquisition tool, which is designed to help dealers optimize their inventory sourcing strategies from non-traditional channels.
“Acquiring inventory is the No. 1 challenge facing dealers today, and will be for some time to come,” vAuto founder and Cox Automotive executive vice president Dale Pollak said in a news release.
“High wholesale costs and limited supply have forced dealers to adopt ‘buy anywhere’ sourcing strategies that go beyond auctions and trade-in channels to acquire inventory,” Pollak said. “The problem is that this pivot puts dealership appraisers and buyers in unfamiliar territory. They must now acquire cars across a wider number of sourcing channels, where opportunities and risks are different, at a time when the market won’t forgive buying the wrong car or paying too much.”
Global Acquisition is part of the new ProfitTime Global Profitability Solution. It aims to help dealers build an “investment value-based acquisition strategy” for appraisers and buyers that’s specifically designed for the variety of wholesale channels out there. That would include auction, trade-in, dealer-to-dealer platform, off-lease, buying from consumers off the street or in service lane, and more.
It is designed to recommend an acquisition price and retail asking price when the car is appraised.
It aims to help dealers acquire a car profitable in three ways.
First, through helping dealers strategize. Global Acquisition enables a dealer to build an acquisition strategy that considers the unique risks and opportunities in a given channel.
Second, there is a dashboard with the tool that provides a picture of how effective the appraiser and their appraisal process are in terms of meeting the dealership’s goal. It displays the vehicles sourced through each channel, whether or not they were purchased as part of the strategy and why, along with their performance as retail vehicles.
Lastly, Global Acquisition is designed to help dealers optimize each sourcing channel.
“Dealers can optimize their volume and gross performance based on where they purchase vehicles and through optimizing the performance of their appraisers,” Pollak said. “Global Acquisition is like nothing else available in the industry today.”
Randy Kobat, who is Cox Automotive’s vice president of inventory management solutions, said in the release: “As we've always said at vAuto, ‘you make money when you buy a car, not when you sell it.’ This has never been truer than in today’s volatile pre-owned vehicle market. Global Acquisition answers the call of dealerships struggling to build an inventory stream that is poised for profitability and growth.”
These days, you’re bound to find “pop-up” events that range from holiday markets to yoga classes.
You can now add selling your car to that mix.
Online used-car ecommerce platform Shift was set to host a “Car to Cash” pop-up event in the Los Angeles area this past weekend to acquire cars from consumers.
The event, which was to be located at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., gave consumers the chance to have to have their vehicles evaluated (with no obligation) and potentially purchased.
Shift was making offers on eligible vehicles with less than 100,000 miles on the odometers.
“We’ll take a look at your car, noting all its bells and whistles, and then make you an offer based on thousands of data points including your local market demand,” the company said in a blog post about the event.
Consumers selling their car on the spot were given a $400 bonus (on top of the digital payment for their vehicle) and $25 in Lyft credits for the ride home.
“Now more than ever, there is an incredible demand for used vehicles, especially as new cars have been increasingly difficult to come by,” Shift president Jeff Clementz said in a news release. “We are excited to bring Shift's mission to life with our first Car to Cash event in Los Angeles, and make the car selling experience easier, more convenient and more accessible for consumers.”
Shift co-founder and co-chief executive officer George Arison added: “Shift already offers a superior experience online for customers looking to sell their cars. We're thrilled to bring an even more streamlined version of our one-stop-shop to Los Angeles.”
Shift is not alone among online used-car retailers aiming to buy cars from consumers.
In its upcoming return to Super Bowl advertising next month, Vroom will turn its attention to the consumer experience of selling used cars.
Through a Broadway-themed spot titled “Flake the Musical,” the company will share how “selling your vehicle can now be just as easy with Vroom as buying one,” it said in a news release.
The 30-second spot, which will air during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13, is designed to show the “rollercoaster of emotions” involved in selling a vehicle on a peer-to-peer site, specifically when the would-be buyer backs out of the deal.
“Now is a terrific time to sell a vehicle with used-car pricing at all-time highs. However, the process can be overwhelming and unnecessarily complicated,” Vroom chief marketing officer Peter Scherr said in a news release.
“At Vroom, we make selling your car as easy as possible. Being a part of the Super Bowl allows us to invite tens of millions of consumers to visit Vroom.com and get an instant price on their car,” he said. “When someone is ready to sell, we pick up the car and the consumer gets paid … all from home. No more meeting strangers, endless negotiating, or being flaked on. What could be better?”
In an effort to help dealer inventory stand tall on the front line and store website, Rapid Recon announced two new features to give users of its reconditioning communications and workflow software more flexibility, operating insight and consumer engagement.
According to a news release distributed on Thursday, the enhancements include new executive summary and a clickable customer-facing option for Rapid Recon’s Digital Vehicle Portfolio powered by iPacket, a provider of digital sales presentation solutions for dealers to convert more shoppers to engaged and active sales leads.
Rapid Recon highlighted that the new executive summary automatically can deliver critical operating data catering to managers who need a high-level view of their dealership.
The executive summary is an automated email comprising information essential for improved used-vehicle sales performance. This data includes the dealership’s reconditioning time-to-line and average days in recon performance numbers, reconditioning costs by recon process phase, vehicle counts and more.
Furthermore, the latest update to the Rapid Recon Digital Vehicle Portfolio (DVP) is an enhanced online description tool.
The company explained this customer-facing option is for dealerships enrolled in the Rapid Recon Digital Vehicle Portfolio. Clicking the feature can keep technicians’ notes separate and invisible from shoppers using the dealer’s online DVP sales, helping potential buyers gain confidence in the integrity of the dealer’s used vehicle and to build trust in the dealership.
Rapid Recon went on to say the DVP can help dealers convert more shoppers to engaged and active sales leads. The tool can give online shoppers detailed, accurate and clickable VIN-specific insight into a dealer’s used-vehicle inventory, including:
— Recon summary reports that educate shoppers on the quality and integrity of the dealer’s vehicles and dealership
— The original OEM MSRP window sticker
— New-car brochure
— Certified pre-owned or in-house warranty docs
— Other value-building documentation
Rapid Recon added that other content provided by the Digital Vehicle Portfolio includes the vehicle history report, warranty options, and the dealership’s “Why Shop Here” marketing messaging.
AutoBuy provides a marketplace for dealers to buy used-car inventory sourced from consumers.
Mark Maida, co-founder and chief executive of the company, joins the show to talk about the business model and how it's different than other car-buying models, the expansion of its footprint and more.
To listen to the episode, click on the link available below, or visit the Auto Remarketing Podcast page.
Download and subscribe to the Auto Remarketing Podcast on iTunes or on Google Play.
AutoWeb has taken its CarZeus used-vehicle acquisition platform to a second market: Austin, Texas.
CarZeus buys cars directly from consumers and resells them in the wholesale market. Its first market was San Antonio. AutoWeb purchased CarZeus from founder Phil Kandera and McCombs Family Partners this summer.
“We are excited to expand our vehicle acquisition service into the Austin market and continue our efforts to scale and enhance this exciting offering. This will allow us to cater to the needs of consumers in a second community in Texas,” AutoWeb president and chief executive officer Jared Rowe said in a news release.
“The acquisition of CarZeus represents another step in our transformation from automotive digital media provider to transactionally-focused matchmaker. What we do best is identify consumers’ preferences and then match them with a service provider that can best accommodate their specific needs during the complex and multi-choice transaction of purchasing and disposing of vehicles,” Rowe said.
“CarZeus is already benefitting from AutoWeb’s highly efficient and scalable ability to engage and curate an audience of vehicle disposal intenders, and we intend to build upon this momentum.”
In addition to Austin, AutoWeb has plans to expand CarZeus to more markets.
