2021: The year of the van?
It’s no secret at this point that demand for cars has, after an initial blip, skyrocketed through the pandemic. This has also caused significant growth in used car prices with our latest analysis (taken on the 18th October 2021) showing used car prices have risen 23.9% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
But what about the wider vehicle segment and specifically what has happened in the van market?
Popularity and prices on the up
Demand for vans also blasted off through the pandemic and has been sustained ever since. Visitor levels to our dedicated van platform were up 22% in September vs the same period in 2019, when trading conditions were normal, with a staggering 15 million advert views of vans taking place last month. Leads are also running at record levels, up 61% in September vs 2019.
This audience growth is translating into sales for both new and used vans, with the latest SMMT data showing that, despite the chip shortage that has seemingly blighted new car supply, new van registrations are up 28.4% on a year-to-date basis.
This is reflected on our platform where we’ve seen the number of leads per new van advert grow by 14% vs 2020 and new van leads in September up by 22%.
On the used front, we’ve seen prices continue to grow. September saw an average of £213 added to the sticker price of a used van compared to August with last month being the 21st consecutive month of used van price growth and seeing a 15% year-on-year growth in average asking prices.
The volume of stock being added to our platform continues to grow as well with last month seeing 20,000 vans added to our platform, up 14% from September 2019.
Despite prices continuing to rise, demand remains incredibly high with the speed at which these vehicles sell remaining lower than pre-pandemic levels. Those 20,000 vehicles added last month can expect to sell in an average of 38 days (of course this varies on model, age etc) and 31% of these could sell in less than 20 days if the market remains as it was in September.
All of this means that right now the van market is in an incredibly strong position and the high levels of demand we’re currently seeing looks set to continue.
Volts and vans
September’s fuel crisis did much to spur interest in electric vehicles and we saw this play out on our platform, with the weekend of the crisis seeing a 30% increase in electric van advert views compared to the weekend before.
Average number of electric van adverts and number of electric van advert views since October 2019.
This growth though did not end up being short-lived with the volume of advert views of electric vans 5 times higher last month than in September 2019 and having grown a massive 67% since the start of the year.
Our onsite survey also shows that this interest is set to translate into sales, with over half of surveyed on-site users on our marketplace indicating that they intend to buy an electric van in the next 6 months.
But our survey showed that familiar concerns remain with 30% of users not looking to buy an electric van due to concerns around charging. We also found that upfront expense and range anxiety were hurdles among users so there is still a significant amount of work to do alleviate these concerns and drive adoption of electric vans.
2021 then it seems is not just the year of the van, but also the breakthrough year for electric vans.