We all remember Autotrader from when we were younger. Great mag, flicking though the pages when it was out on a Thursday morning. It was the go to place for your next motor.
However these days, they have become quite embattled in the eyes of the Traders. Their costs are simply eye watering. They also have their hand on the Traders' website, and have had recent bad press around their "Deal Builder" model, which reserves a car for a punter for a certain time period. It was if I'm not mistaken this was 21 days, but that's been reigned in a little now after a massive backlash. Auto traders share price has absolutely bombed as a result, with several hundred cancellations and many Traders reducing their package to advertise less stock, and just rotate it.
I follow a handful of traders on YT, one states his annual bill is 72k - for advertising around 30 cars a month. It's quadruple the cost of the rent for his pitch. It's just not sustainable that cost. That trader alleges AT makes 70p pure profit in every £1!
I had no idea that this perceived greed was simply killing the traders, and AT were too intent on interfering with the Sales Process with this Deal Builder strategy. Buying a car/reserving on a whim from the sofa is not good business - you have to stand in front of the thing.
It was no surprise their COO resigned recently...

 

They seem to have overstepped a bit, offering trade in valuations and stepping on dealer toes

There for the.taking imo

Like rightmove they had the traffic but AI is challenging that. Same with Google losing search market share

Try it, it's quite cool but might mean you no longer need an aggregator like AT

Meanwhile they have been exploiting their customers

Edit to say they report traffic growth, but there is massive bot activity on the web now so that's a decline in my book

Power is probably moving back to dealers if they play it well

 

I only used AT for the more expensive cars in stock if the weren’t selling using the local advertising, not always successful despite being nationwide, and expensive. Not a worry anymore thankfully.