Weekly vans update with Matthew Davock - 23rd June 2015
Footfall in the auction halls and online numbers have also increased by a similar percentage showing the buyers appetite remains positive.
Catalogues this week have listed significant volumes of car derived vans; some sales seeing as much as 60% of this segment. Citroen Berlingo, Peugeot Partner, Volkswagen Caddy and Renault Kangoo were the major contributors of this duplicated car derived van mix.
From this it has been very noticeable that through the buyer’s eyes they are cherry picking the cleaner and lower mileage examples first or the examples in metallic colours and higher specification such as air conditioning, side loading doors and dual passenger seats.
For duplicate examples that are heavily damaged, price is key. Vendors who take damage into consideration have been reaping the rewards…as an auctioneer this week the buyers have been waiting for the two most important words they want to hear “On Sale”. I continue to witness how important this is for driving bidding activity. Both the physical and online buyers have reacted very positively when vans are realistically priced and vendors have got them on sale at the earliest opportunity. They often go on and make more money, I only wish absentee vendors could see how this active rostrum management strategy could benefit them, especially as we enter summertime seasonality.
4x4 prices have remained very positive this week and in my opinion this is because of the shortage of numbers currently entering our auction halls, vendors have gone from having 20 4x4’s in sections to 2’s and 3’s. Also this week we have seen most of the 3 litre models selling to online buyers overseas and this shows the export job shows good signs of recovery.
I have managed to spend some quality time meeting buyers in our halls together with account managers from our sister company Nextgear Capital. With over 135 dedicated van dealers now live with a dealer stocking plan the total spending power they have access to is over £17 million pounds! We hear positive buyer feedback relating to retail demand and activity and from this we have seen our buyer base increase and through this funding facility many buyers have reported they have grown there businesses to a different level.
To conclude, this week has been positive and conversion rates have remained healthy and next week is gearing up for much of the same with all 7 sites having LCV sales. Crowning the week on Friday is Enterprise Rent a Car’s first ever exclusively online van auction. We’ll see 60 late plate low mileage vans offered by myself from Manheim Online’s remote rostrum at Bruntingthorpe. The vans themselves are located in de-fleet compounds around the UK and have been imaged and appraised using Manheim technology!
Thank you again for your valued feedback and support… until next week keep ‘Sharing the CV Love’
Thanks Matthew
