A message from our CEO
2026 has started against a noisy global backdrop. While economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and rising costs are hard to ignore, the data shows car-buying confidence remains strong. Vehicles are still seen as a necessity, so both new and used sales are holding up.
Where pressure is really building is on costs. Fuel and electricity costs are climbing for households and businesses alike, and the 1st April saw labour costs add another pressure point. These increases are unavoidable and directly impact margins.
This update from our CEO Nathan Coe, covers topics like
Supply and competition
Our first official Customer Advisory Group
What we’re focused on next
Supply: where competition is most intense
Sourcing remains a major challenge, though its impact varies across the market. 5-10-year-old stock continues to affect more-and-more retailers particularly at the younger end of this bracket. While supply is returning more strongly in the 1-3-year-old and 3-5-year-old segments, creating fierce competition especially as there are a broader mix of fuel types in play.
Independents are taking a greater share of the stock that would traditionally sit with franchise and often pricing more aggressively, making this a more competitive segment of the market.
10+ year-old vehicles continue to see strong demand and pricing is moving in a n upward tend, opening a great margin opportunity for this segment of the market.
Keeping up with changing consumer demand and responding quickly is key to maximising margins. That’s why having confidence in pricing and using data effectively is essential to maximisie every opportunity on each vehicle.
While retailers can’t control everything that’s happening in the market, there are some things you can control
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By understanding the supply and demand dynamics of your local market, opportunities for diversification can be uncovered. If you’re open minded about age, fuel type and brand mix there could be new sourcing opportunities to be had.
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Price and reprice with confidence, using the tools available. Throughout the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be running webinars to walk through exactly how to do this in practice
Sign Up Here to watch the first episode in the series.
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In sourcing, pricing, merchandising, and in partners you choose to work with. This is not the moment for inefficiency.
Our Customer Advisory Groups
Last week we held our first official Customer Advisory Group, bringing together a mix of retailers including, independent and franchises of different sizes from all around the country. We spent the majority of this session listening to what’s occupying retailers’ minds, where we’re helping retailers win, and importantly where you need us to do better.
And when we listened to both out Franchise and Independent customers, they have more in common right now than we expected, particularly around three things
How we present pricing data
How retailers differentiate themselves on our marketplace
The growing pressures around part-exchanges
A key takeaway from this session was the gap between what our data is often recommending to retailers Vs what retailers can act on in their local markets, especially given real local competition. Retailers need more insight that meets them where they are.
It was encouraging that our upcoming plans and product work landed well, mainly because they were shaped by what retailers had already told us matters most. We’ll keep building on this throughout the year. These conversations matter to us, and we want retailers to see what we do next.
To hear more about the first Customer Advisory Group, visit the hub that shares the key themes and next steps.
What we’re focused on next
It won’t surprise you to hear that cost and margin dominated those discussions in our Customer Advisory Groups. So for the coming quarter, our focus is simple: helping you squeeze as much margin as possible for every vehicle you sell.
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While reservations are the highest-intent leads retailers can recieve, some of you told us that you can’t make them work within your existing process
That’s why we’ve launched reservation requests - helping serious buyers signals their intent earlier in the journey, but you still have full control over how you sell
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You’ve told us price indicators can sometimes feel like it’s working against you. We’re looking at how we can improve this, while maintaining consumer confidence in your price.
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You’ve told us margins on older, lower-priced cars are especially tough. Alongside tactical add-on slots at lower rates, we’re exploring ways to make advertising these vehicles even more cost effective where they are your main stock holding
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We’re starting to test AI-powered search on Autotrader to help buyers find the right vehicles even easier.
By allowing consumers to describe what they’re looking for in more natural language, we can match them to the most relevant filters, over time making it even easier for buyers to interact with our search and provide a smoother buying journey
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Don’t forget, our flexible offers are still available until the end of May: double stock, level up your package, or a free PPC campaign.
Contact your account manager for more info!
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We’re enhancing Buying Signals even further to give you deeper insight into the buyers enquiring on your cars
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You’ve said it’s not always easy to understand the value of your package or where to invest your spend. So we’re making more of the insight you currently rely on your account manager for available on self-serve in Portal
We can’t do anything about the external factors influencing the market. But we can make sure you’re in the strongest possible position to sell your vehicles profitably. And that’s what we’re focused on. If you feel you need help with any of this, get in touch with your Partnership Manager.
