Our CEO, Nathan Coe, shares a look at the year ahead along with how the transition to digital retailing will look.

Throughout this crisis, we’ve supported our industry in every way we can. From product developments to enable digital retailing, to regular sharing of data and insight to support your business decisions, through to the financial support we provided with discounted packages, free periods and deferred payment terms.

At Auto Trader, we remain committed to digitising the car buying journey and helping you (the retailer) to make more profit, by removing inefficiencies in the market. That’s why we’re introducing a new proposition called Guaranteed Part-Exchange (GPX) to our marketplace, in partnership with Manheim Auction Services, part of Cox Automotive UK

We continue to track the latest data and insight on how consumers are reacting to the changing situation. I am pleased to say that since the latest announcement, we have not seen a negative impact on consumer demand on site or in the intention of consumers to purchase their next vehicle.

Our position in the market gives us a unique view of consumer behaviour and marketplace trends, and we’re committed to making that insight readily available to you to help you make the most informed decisions. Here’s my three biggest takeaways for your business from this weeks’ webinar.

As part of our continued commitment to support the industry during these challenging times, we’re delighted to announce that we’ll be sponsoring ‘Weekends on Dave’, a premium spot on one of the UK’s most popular digital TV channels.

Moving vehicles has proven to be a big challenge for retailers and fleet businesses since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. But with demand for vehicle movements accelerating quickly, we’ve got easy and effective solutions to help you.

We are all hoping that the worst of the health crisis is behind us, and we can focus our efforts on selling vehicles. We believe there are a number of reasons to feel positive about the current trading environment and there are encouraging signs that this will continue in the coming months.

Cash flow is clearly essential to keeping your forecourt moving right now. Whilst there’s also an obvious challenge with sourcing profitable stock. To reduce some of these issues, we’ve unlocked three powerful solutions to help you source, dispose of and move stock more quickly and cost-effectively to keep the market moving. Make sure you’re not missing out on these solutions.

Fresh Motors is an award-winning car and van dealership based in Norfolk. We caught up with Jacob earlier in the lockdown period to understand his experience of having to shut down. So we invited him back to see how he’s getting on since reopening and asked him to share his insight on how he’s found getting back to business.

Monday 1st June was the first day that showrooms in England could reopen after shutting their doors for 2 months. During that time, the industry once again proved just how robust and adaptable it is when presented with significant challenges. With showrooms closed, it meant bringing as much of the industry as possible online. For some, that was a straightforward process, for others, a very difficult challenge.

We remain committed to doing the right thing to support you and the wider automotive industry. With clarity from the government that retailer forecourts in England now able to re-open on 1st June and clear buyers quickly returning to Auto Trader, the next phase of our support is focussed on helping you to sell as many vehicles as possible.

The retail landscape has changed, and consumer behaviour has shifted significantly. 76% of consumers are concerned about visiting dealerships due to COVID-19 fears. Whatever your goals, ambitions, strategies and challenges were before COVID-19, its highly likely the goalposts will have moved significantly, and need to be revisited to make sure they’re still relevant for the new marketplace we’re all operating in.

Following the SMMT’s announcement in the last few days about April’s new car transactions being down 97% year-on-year, I have to say, I was surprised that even 4,000 cars registered at all. And whilst alarming, the demand from consumers is still bubbling.

On last weeks webinar, we were joined by Chartered Trading Institute Specialist, Peter Stonely. We opened the floor to questions for Peter and were inundated with questions around distance selling laws. It simply wasn’t possible to answer them all live on the webinar, so we caught up with Peter afterwards to get answers to the ones we weren’t able to answer live.

The topic of consumer test drives came up is this weeks webinar, click here in case you missed it. And we wanted to let you know that we have just received confirmation from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) that potential buyers are now permitted to test drive a vehicle on trade plates, without the retailer being present.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken to loads of retailers of all shapes and sizes. And I’ve been really inspired and assured by some of the practices they’re putting in place to gain the trust and confidence of their customers in preparation for when they’re ready to retail again at full capacity. Here’s my collation of some the best practices I’ve observed from retailers across the UK.

For those of you who were able to join our webinar this week (22nd April), you would have heard me discuss some of the key findings from our latest consumer research. Conducted just last week, four weeks into the COVID-19 lockdown, it was based on three separate surveys which collectively sourced the opinions of over 3,000 people.