Price accurately and maximise margins with automatically selected optional specification
Benefit from enhanced optional Vehicle Identification Number Specification (VIN Spec) data when pricing your stock
Valuing a vehicle without knowing the true depth of its specification can mean that vital margins are left on the table. Recent analysis on our platform revealed that 53% of vehicles that haven’t used available VIN Spec data would see a boost in valuation if the accurate optional extras had been selected*.
However, identifying the value-adding specification that a vehicle left the factory with is no easy task. The same analysis showed that 46% of retailer adverts are inaccurately describing the vehicle.
To what extent are margins being affected by missing spec?
Retailers are missing out on an average of £361 of unrealised margin as a result of omitting value-adding specification from the vehicle advert.
These unrealised margins can be significantly higher amongst newer, premium vehicles, with one example of a premium brand model being undervalued by as much as £5,587 due to missing specification on the advert.
Helping you maximise your margins with enhanced VIN Spec data
We are working with an increasing number of leading manufacturers to provide optional VIN Spec data on our platform. With this enhanced data, all optional spec that the vehicle left the factory with will be automatically selected.
As a result, you can be confident that the price of a vehicle is accurate to the value of its optional spec. This will be true when:
Listing a vehicle advert
Editing an existing vehicle advert
It will also be true when:
Looking up the VRM of an out-of-stock vehicle
Retail checking a vehicle
The ability to use enhanced VIN Spec data for out-of-stock vehicles not only brings benefits to your pricing strategy, but also to your sourcing strategy too. Knowing the exact specification of a vehicle when valuing part-exchanges and buying new stock brings an increased level of confidence when deciding what price to pay for the vehicle.
This feature will be available for an increasing number of vehicles as we begin to integrate more manufacturer VIN data onto our platform.
Details on where you will see the benefits of VIN Spec data, along with a list of brands currently benefitting is available here.
*Analysis based on 52,000 vehicles advertised on Auto Trader on 27/07/2022, where VIN Spec data was available for those brands
