An audience update from our Data & Insight Director, Richard Walker

Yesterday, our Data & Insight Director Richard Walker, shared some of the key market observations that we are seeing during our webinar, and as promised, we will keep sharing an up to date view of what’s going on. Here’s today update from him:

“We can see that the overall classified market has seen traffic decline approximately -41% over the last week (when compared to the same period last year). Whilst our marketplace has been a little more resilient than others, we too have seen our traffic gradually decline since the government’s announcement on 12th March. Before then we had an average of 1.1 million daily users and since ‘lockdown’ was announced on Monday this has declined to c.755,000.

The announcement also resulted in a decline in leads, although with 9,000 emails, Live Chat and texts still being sent to our customers daily, there are still a significant number of people in the market researching their next car and therefore trying to contact retailers. Coupled with the fact that between 8,000 and 10,000 adverts are still being saved by consumers everyday, it suggests that whilst consumers can’t easily buy their next car now, they haven’t stopped looking for them. It’s therefore vital, that whilst physical premises have had to close, digital forecourts remain very much open, and retailers are in the best possible position for when the current restrictions are lifted.”

If you missed yesterday’s webinar, featuring ASE Global’s Mike Jones, as well as Auto Trader’s Darren Moon, Chris Penny, Marc Thornborough and Stuart Leatherbarrow, it is now available as a catch up. Just visit: https://bit.ly/3afU6Uz or read our summary of the 4 most common questions you asked in the webinar here.