MAN TOPUSED
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Spreading risk and raising the profile sums up Rael Winetroube’s approach since he became MAN TopUsed sales director last year. His background in the car market came to the fore when he pushed for the branded sale at auction.
“We wanted to have branded auctions, and agreed to run a pilot with ProTruck Auctions. The plan was to put 25 to 30 trucks on a monthly basis through the auctions. ProTruck would then advertise the vehicles to its customer base and market them,” he says. “We would prep the vehicles.” At auction, ProTruck parks the MAN vehicles together so buyers can see the trucks, then puts the vehicles under the hammer at a specific time. With MAN ensuring its trade manager is on the rostrum, buyers know decisions are made there and then, and that encourages them to buy, Winetroube says.
MAN gets in around 2,400 vehicles a year through rental, leasing, finance agreements and buybacks, half of which are retailed through TopUsed, while the other half is traded out through third parties.
The branded sale is now absolutely key to MAN’s remarketing plan, he says. It has raised the price of the trucks it sells, increased the number of independent UK and export dealers it deals with, and increased its direct export market.
“Running this auction once a month, which is a cross-section of MAN’s stock, sets a good benchmark of the prices for the month,” he says. “It is helping us to be smarter, and identify particular vehicle types and ages, which optimises the whole life cost proposition MAN pushes for new vehicles.” In the first four sales, 121 trucks have been sold, which is all of the vehicles entered, accruing £1.3m or an average of £10,750 per vehicle. “In the past, we dealt with a small nucleus of trade buyers. When I came on board, I was keen to expand both UK and exporters, to de-risk it and raise our selling price.
“We have seen a significant increase in prices like-for-like from last year,” he says. “There are more traders seeing that they can trade with us, and it has increased our buyer base. [Now] there is a good mix of UK trade buyers, exporters and retail customers.” Winetroube is keen to highlight the difference between the trucks that are traded out, and the ones that end up as part of the TopUsed portfolio. Although there is a 54-month age boundary, Winetroube says the retail/trade split is more likely to be made because of mileage.
“What is sold at auction isn’t the same as what appears in the classifieds. A TGA tractor unit might still be a 57-plate in classified, but the 57-plate at auction will have more than 550,000km on the clock. Typically, a 7.5-tonne vehicle will have more than 250,000km, and an 18-tonner more than 300,000km,” he adds.
The real surprise has been the interest and prices achieved for older vehicles that have little value to the manufacturer. “Older vehicles at the bottom of our table in terms of age and mileage seem to perform disproportionately better, like an old 7.5-tonne chassis cab that has been around the world: these have really over performed,” he says.