How to keep your finger on the pulse during these turbulent times

Are you still trying to figure out what this situation means for you, how you can keep your business turning over and put yourself in the best position once things return to normal? I’d be surprised if any of you say no. At a time when the industry is facing unprecedented challenges, keeping your finger on the pulse and having access to data and insight on the automotive market is more important than ever.

Given the current situation with retailers no longer able to trade as normal, we must all adapt. This can mean finding new ways of working remotely, to connecting with customers to build your future sales pipeline. It also means monitoring the market, being aware of how consumers are responding and what they are likely to purchase when the current restrictions are lifted.

We originally built AT Market Insight as a tool to help retailers use up-to-date market intelligence to identify key trends in the market, understand how it may impact their performance, and inform how to adapt accordingly. The world has moved on, and whilst we know this will be a powerful tool for that in future to inform your stock mix, right now it’ll be invaluable in helping you keep your finger on the pulse of the market – which is why we brought the product launch date forward.

Use Market Health to get a good read of the overall market

We’ve created a Market Health score which shows the balance of vehicle supply versus buyer demand compared to the previous year.

Using the explore filters at the top of the page, you can select makes and models within each make, body type, fuel type, vehicle age band and location, to see movements in supply and demand. This is a search showing the market health for diesels up until last week. As you can see there has been a big dip recently, but our site visit figures suggest consumers are returning to our platform to conduct research so this picture will evolve.

Use Supply and Demand to understand what’s driving the market health

To get a real understanding of what’s driving that weaker market health, we need to explore the supply and demand charts below. These clearly show that supply of diesel vehicles is down compared to last year, but buyer demand has declined further in the wake of Covid-19.

With this data now at your fingertips, you can monitor the market to see where there is still buyer demand and how that changes over time as this situation unfolds.

In the coming weeks we’ll also release two further key components of the tool, national pricing and speed of sale trends. This will enable you to see the impact of market conditions on the pricing of vehicles on Auto Trader and the speed of sale those vehicles achieve as sales start to come through again, whenever that may be. This will be crucial information in understanding whether the market price of vehicles is affected by this pandemic and knowing what is selling fastest when we come out of this so you can hit the ground running.

Nathan Coe, Auto Trader’s CEO, commented: “The automotive industry has faced a series of unprecedented challenges over the last few years. However, nothing could prepare retailers for the huge impact COVID-19 is having on their businesses. At a time of such uncertainty, we believe that it’s more important than ever to have the ability to identify and understand critical changes in the market.

“Data, alongside one’s own expertise and experience, is invaluable in adapting to a fast-evolving landscape. That’s why we’ve done all we can to give our customers the benefit of our market intelligence as soon as possible to help navigate these unique challenges.”

From today, you have access to this unparalleled market insight and intelligence directly in portal, just head to “Analytics” in the navigation and select “Market Insight”.

In our weekly webinar series Chris Penny gave an overview of the tool - we’ve created a short summary of his introduction which you can watch here . You can also learn more about the tool and how to use it on this page.

Author: Richard Walker, Data & Insight Director, Auto Trader.