Top20 World Auto Marketplaces. How do They Work on Trust and Transparency
As a product manager with more than 15 years of experience in online business, I do believe that one of the most valuable skills in this area is overseeing the best products on the market. So on a regular basis, I am tracking several online car sales products in the world for quite a long time already. My last research was focused on features that help classifieds be closer to the deal and adopt the marketplace model. I have analysed 20 most popular auto marketplaces in the world and want to share some insights and interesting examples with you.
As a base for this research, I used the AIM Group Marketplaces report focused on Top 50 auto sites globally and Similarweb audience data for October 2020. In order to sort the list, I used monthly visits and country population metrics that give us an opportunity to compare such different countries as Russia, UK, China or India.
Top20 World Auto Marketplaces
- OTOMOTO
https://www.otomoto.pl/
Poland (38 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 42
Visits/1000 people: 1105 - Mobile.de
https://www.mobile.de/
Germany (83 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 57
Visits/1000 people: 687 - Drom.ru
https://www.drom.ru/
Russia (146 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 73
Visits/1000 people: 500 - CarSales.com.au
https://www.carsales.com.au/
Australia (25 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 12
Visits/1000 people: 480 - Autotrader.co.uk
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/
UK (63 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 29
Visits/1000 people: 460 - Auto.RIA.com
https://auto.ria.com/
Ukraine (41 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 18
Visits/1000 people: 439 - Standvirtual
https://www.standvirtual.com/
Portugal (10 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 4
Visits/1000 people: 400 - Auto.ru
https://auto.ru/
Russia (146 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 57
Visits/1000 people: 390 - Bobaedream
https://bobaedream.co.kr/
South Korea (51 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 19
Visits/1000 people: 373 - Kolesa.kz
https://kolesa.kz/
Kazakhstan (18 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 5
Visits/1000 people: 278 - CarSensor
https://www.carsensor.net/
Japan (126 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 28
Visits/1000 people: 222 - Autovit
https://www.autovit.ro/
Romania (19 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 4
Visits/1000 people: 211 - LaCentrale
https://www.lacentrale.fr/
France (67 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 12
Visits/1000 people: 179 - CarGurus
https://www.cargurus.com/
USA (308 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 55
Visits/1000 people: 179 - Autotrader
https://www.autotrader.com/
USA (308 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 24
Visits/1000 people: 78 - Cars.com
https://www.cars.com/
USA (308 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 24
Visits/1000 people: 78 - AutoScout24
https://www.autoscout24.com/
Europe (~500 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 16
Visits/1000 people: 32 - Autohome.com.cn
https://www.autohome.com.cn/
China (1370 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 39
Visits/1000 people: 28 - CarWhale
https://www.carwale.com/
Idia (1352 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 25
Visits/1000 people: 18 - Cardekho
https://www.cardekho.com/
Idia (1352 mln)
Monthly visits (mln): 17
Visits/1000 people: 13
How Can Auto Marketplaces be Closer to the Deal?
Financing
Buying a car is expensive. Financing services provided by banks and other financial organisations were always good support for the buyer. For auto sales products financing is a great tool to track the deal — the most challenging goal for any online classified product. Products around the world partner with banks or online credit brokers to generate leads and provide more information about the buyer and the car.
Some marketplaces even acquired a bank to make this process faster and easier for the customers. 16 of 20 products from the list above offer financing as additional service.
Price Evaluation
Pricing the car is unclear. The price depends on many factors and setting the right price as a seller and comparing car prices as a buyer could be challenging. Marketplaces have a huge amount of data about the automotive market. Using machine learning most of them can help their customers with setting the price. Almost all products in the list (16 of 20) offer price estimation tools. Some of them actively recommend the best price for a seller during the posting flow. Almost all show price estimations on the ad page for buyers.
Price history also could be a good source of information if a buyer wants to understand a car’s liquidity and how it will change in time. But this is a more complex analysis that requires more data, so only 6 of 20 products show price history as a reference for car buyers.
Car History and Technical Inspection
Buying a car is risky. Most of the buyers don’t know a lot about cars. Many of them are the first time buyers. So the trust problem is critical. Car marketplace products can help here by providing additional information about car technical condition and car history. 11 of 20 products in the list can provide a car history report listing all previous car owners, road incidents and other details in partnership with specialised online services such as Carfax or Autocheck.
Car inspection is challenging. It needs offline infrastructure and even strong market players might not be ready for such initiatives. However, in some countries, mostly in the emerging markets, car inspection is becoming a trend and could be used as an additional source of revenue for the company. 6 of 20 auto marketplaces offer this service to the customers. For example, CarSales offers pre-purchase inspection service by trusted mobile mechanics across Australia. Auto.RIA.ua uses technical inspections provided by partner service stations across Ukraine as an important value proposition for buyers. Kolesa.kz uses car inspection as a mandatory part of financing product for C2C deals on the platform.
Car Buying
Selling a car is time-consuming. The seller must spend some time and effort to prepare a car, post an ad, answer phone calls and messages, meet potential buyers, arrange the deal and do some paperwork. For auto marketplaces this is a good chance to help private sellers by providing technical car inspections, direct price offers and helps with paperwork. Many car buying products are able to purchase a car in one day — great value for those sellers, who are not ready to spend time and money on the car sale process. The price will be different from the market price, but sometimes the price is not the main factor.
9 of 20 products from the list offer car buying option for their clients, OTOMOTO is one of them and my team is focused on this promising business model. The “3–2–1 SPRZEDANE!” product has been launched by OLX Motors and FCG at the beginning of 2020 and already purchases from privates and sells to dealers hundreds of cars every month.
Car buying and technical inspections could not only provide a new revenue source, but also build trust and improve transparency. For example, Cardekho in India provides detailed inspection report and 7 days 100% repair guarantee for every inspected car on the platform. Mobile.de has more than 400 buying stations in partnership with certified car dealers across Germany. Free car inspection helps to simplify the process of selling a car and limit the number of contacts with strangers, that is also a valuable factor in COVID times.
In closing a few words about myself. I have experience in the online car sales industry in 3 very different markets — Kazakhstan (Kolesa.kz), Russia (Avito.ru, Auto.ru), and now Poland (OTOMOTO.pl). I am happy to share my knowledge and learn from you. Follow me on Twitter, get in touch on LinkedIn, subscribe to my Telegram channel about product management (Russian only for now). And let’s change for the better the online car sale experience together!
