ONLINE AUCTIONS HELPING TO SHIFT OLDER STOCK
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Volvo Trucks has several ways to sell its stock. “We’ve got dealers whom we wholly own and we’ve got private dealers,” says Peter Groome. “The former have, in effect, got one used truck business between them, which reports to me, and they retail approximately 1,000 used trucks a year.
“Add in the private dealers and we sell a total of around 2,500 to 3,000 annually, including some that are exported. We’ve also got an online electronic auction site that we launched in 2010 that we use to dispose of older, highmileage trucks. We’ve had quite a number of vehicles dating back to 2000 and 2001 going through.” The site has taken a little while to get off the ground. “To make something like this work, you need volume and you need to be auctioning regularly to keep the buyers interested. To date though it’s been well received, and I’m actually quite pleased with it.” Prospective bidders have to register first, and they must be trade buyers. “We try to hold at least one auction a week and recently we’ve been able to hold two. We provide a full and honest description of each vehicle, plus a good set of photographs and pictures of all the documents that accompany it.
“I think it will grow organically, but what we are not doing is setting up in competition with the mainstream auctions.
“We set up the site to enable us to dispose of vehicles that we would have traditionally taken to auction or traded. It’s a simple mechanism that allows sales people to concentrate on talking to retail customers, rather than having to concern themselves with disposing of trucks that are not retailable.
“Getting rid of older trade-ins can be distracting.” The auction vehicles tend to be purchased by the traders who would have bought them anyway and they can come and inspect them before they buy. “But there’s a bit more order about using the auction approach,” says Groome.
“Furthermore, the trucks are sold from where they stand so we don’t incur the cost of moving them to a traditional auction site.” What will happen to the used market over the next 12 months?
“The signs are that it will remain relatively stable.” he says. “I certainly don’t think it will go backwards; and that has to be a good thing.”