Digital car auction: sell trade-ins quickly and transparently

Modern car auctions help car dealerships to market trade-ins quickly and with optimum returns. This saves effort and reduces downtime.

Trade-ins are still an important tool for customer acquisition in the retail sector. Buyers can often only be persuaded by a good final offer for their "old" car. But what then?

What do you do as a dealer if the trade-in is not a well-kept young car from a regular customer, but a vehicle that doesn't fit your own range at all? Third-party brands and older vehicles are neither crowd pullers nor do they fit in with your own brand's customer base.  

What is the best way for a dealer to sell these trade-ins? The sales department often has little interest in trade-ins. For the management, they are both an opportunity and a risk. They can be used to improve the profit of the overall business or lose money by marketing the trade-in too poorly.

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Marketing trade-ins individually has rarely been worthwhile to date

Although local used car dealers will buy anything if the price is low enough, they prefer to look for the best pieces of stock. Packages of several vehicles should therefore bundle the attractive vehicles with those that are more difficult to market. It is usually difficult for management to assess the potential market value of trade-ins and whether they can be marketed well.

Local buyers may get the vehicles out of the yard quickly, but this does not result in the ideal return per vehicle. The company loses potential revenue with every sale. Nowadays, there are more modern ways to handle remarketing for trade-ins digitally, with more transparency, less stress and more revenue.

With defined criteria, car dealerships can decide at the trade-in stage how to proceed with different vehicle categories and what should happen after the purchase. Is this a case for the second row in your own yard? Is this an interesting object for a local dealer? Or should the vehicle be collected at the end of the month together with many others on the large transporter? Dealers still lack the reassuring certainty of being able to find a suitable buyer for every vehicle. Or are there other options?

Targeted online auctions with integrated transaction processing are an ideal way of finding a suitable reseller for each vehicle and achieving the maximum sales price at every auction. Digital remarketing platforms such as CarOnSale help dealers to quickly find suitable buyers for their vehicles via car auctions - from all over Europe. This makes package deals a thing of the past.

The online remarketing service

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The key lies in professional car auctions. This allows car dealers to expand their buyer base and market vehicles that do not fit into their range quickly and transparently. This minimizes downtime. Instead of selling many vehicles below value to the few local buyers who will buy literally anything - as long as it's cheap enough - dealers can use car auctions to find exactly the buyers who are looking for these types of vehicles.

The term "auction" could give the impression that dealers are solely subject to the bidders' willingness to buy. However, today's online auctions have nothing to do with the classic car auctions on a gravel yard of the past.

Instead, car auctions such as CarOnSale offer a comprehensive service, their own assessments of the vehicle's condition and potential buyers from all over Europe. Thanks to the valuation service for dealers, the exact value of trade-ins is documented. Car dealers can easily optimize their earnings with online car auctions:

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Tips for effective online car auctions

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The neutral condition assessment allows potential buyers to accurately estimate the possible resale value and the cost of possible refurbishment before the auction. Buyers don't like surprises, such a vehicle valuation provides clarity and eliminates the uncertainty factor that depresses prices. The car dealership can also see exactly what the trade-in value is based on the transparent valuation.

If the dealer carries out the preparation himself before the valuation and auction, this further increases the chances of selling a vehicle in top condition for a good price.

Last but not least, the duration of the online auction also plays a major role. Fast-moving, attractive vehicles find numerous interested parties immediately. More exotic vehicles have a smaller circle of potential buyers and should be given a longer auction duration in order to gain the desired appreciation and find an interested reseller.  

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Online auctions: Market trade-ins without effort

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With CarOnSale, dealers can conveniently use the entire chain of remarketing trade-ins with one service. From the independent service for vehicle valuation to the creation of the auction advertisement for the vehicle and payment processing.

This significantly reduces the effort involved in marketing used vehicles, while at the same time providing an ideal process for buyers and Seller. The buyer knows exactly what they are getting and pays what the car is actually worth, without the "uncertainty discount" that is common in blind auctions.

CarOnSale also takes care of all process steps after the sale. This means that Seller does not have to worry about anything, as CarOnSale takes care of payment processing, organizes transport and deals with any complaints.

This enables car dealerships and dealers to market trade-ins with the best return via car auctions without having to go to the effort that is otherwise required for individual sales. At the same time, trade-ins become transparent for the dealership: digital marketing via car auctions reduces downtimes to just a few days, while the vehicles still achieve the best possible return thanks to the clean documentation.