Auto Editor - Online Marketplaces

Cazoo announces its Chief Financial Officer will be leaving the company

Auto Editor — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 00:30:00 +0000

Cazoo, the online used vehicle platform based out of the UK, recently announced that its Chief Financial Officer has left the company.

Alex Gersh has ‘moved on’, the firm said, but there are no plans to replace him.

In a statement issued to Car Dealer Magazine yesterday, Lawrence Hall, communication director, said: ‘Alex Gersh has moved on from Cazoo. We have a finance director and strong finance team in place within the business so have no immediate plans to replace this role.’

Led by former Zoopla and LoveFilm founder Alex Chesterman, the online retailer has so far raised more than £80 million in funding and launched in December 2019.

Last month, we reported that Cazoo has ambitions of selling 217,000 used cars a year by 2025. The figure was contained in a leaked document which also revealed the company will lose more than £70 million over the next three years.

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Didi Chuxing launches health safety effort in its ride-hailing cars to slow the coronavirus

Auto Editor — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 00:30:00 +0000

China's largest ride-hailing platform, Didi Chuxing, is increasing its push to help slow the current spread of the coronavirus by launching a new program to put protective health barriers between passengers and drivers.

Beijing-based Didi plans to invest about $14.3 million in this safety measure, which involves installing protective plastic sheets that are expected to prevent droplet transmission of the COVID-19 disease, according to the company's statement.

"Didi is implementing this and other anti-coronavirus initiatives, as public health officials call on citizens to use public transportation with caution," the company said. "This measure is popular among drivers and riders."

With guidance from medical professionals, Didi initially rolled out its protective divider program in a number of cities, including the southern coastal city of Shenzhen, Taiyuan in northern Shanxi province and in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province and the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

Didi drivers can choose to install the protective screens in selected locations or on their own using the instructions provided.

A spokesman for Didi Chuxing declined to comment on the total number of cars under the ride-hailing platform but said the company supported 30 million drivers as of 2018.

Didi's expanded safety measures have come amid industry difficulties in China, the world's biggest ride-hailing market, where the coronavirus outbreak has led to a slowdown in demand.

Despite an aversion to using mass public transport at the present time, even ride-hailing is facing new problems after reports earlier this month of multiple drivers being diagnosed with coronavirus, clouding prospects for an industry already hit hard by government-imposed travel restrictions across the country.

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AADA urges to end the practice of 'fake ales' within Australia

Auto Editor — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 23:30:00 +0000

The Australian Automotive Dealer Association recently revealed that 'fake sales' are hurting consumers and the country's overall economic health.

The national groundswell against OEMs engaged in registering vehicles that have no buyers – known as ‘cyber cars’ – continues this year with the Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) reiterating calls for it to be abolished.

It comes as the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), announces a clampdown on false reporting practices and as action continues in the UK against cyber cars.

The AADA this week said that “fake sales reporting can adversely impact consumers by eating into new-car warranties” and that the reporting of these sales “undermines the credibility of data relied upon to assess Australia’s economic health”.

The association concedes the practice has presented a far more buoyant image of the state of the Australian automotive industry and has led to governments choosing to tap into this wealth by applying state-based stamp duty increases.

This is applied in Victoria and Queensland and is additional to the federal luxury car tax.

AADA CEO James Voortman said: “International regulators are waking up to the problem and have started to target car manufacturers which report exaggerated and false sales figures.

“Last week it was reported that the SEC opened an investigation into BMW, while in September Fiat Chrysler agreed to pay the SEC $40 million over claims it inflated sales figures.

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After launching at the end of 2019, Cazoo starts 2020 with an advertising campaign

Auto Editor — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 00:30:00 +0000

Cazoo, the online vehicle retail platform, only just launched at the end of last year touting its online effort, financial backing, and an effort to add transparency to the car buying process.

Cazoo is the latest venture from CEO Alex Chesterman, the Founder and CEO of ZPG, which owns digital brands like Zoopla, uSwitch, PrimeLocation and Money.co.uk, which was acquired for £2.2bn in 2018. Prior to that, he Co-Founded LoveFilm, which was sold to Amazon in 2010 for a reported £200m.

Cazoo has big backers. On launch day it announced a further £25m of funding, taking the total to £80m. That’s a lot of investment and shows confidence in the prospects for the business.

The website was launched with over 1,500 cars in stock. At the time of writing it had grown to 1,800. Prices of cars on Cazoo are fixed, buyers can finance a car online and have it delivered and there is a seven-day money back guarantee. It also does trade-ins.

Cazoo is not another intermediary taking a cut of margin. It owns the stock it has on its site and the preparation and processing and imaging side is handled by BCA’s vehicle preparation site in Corby, Northamptonshire. BCA already provides these services to franchised and independent dealers. In 2018, for example, it was awarded a five year UK de-fleet contract with BMW UK. The site at Corby is industrial in scale.

In June this year BCA signed commercial partnership agreements with Cazoo for its vehicle logistics, refurbishment and disposal requirements. BCA also provides part exchange disposal services for Cazoo using the BCA Consumer Appraisal and DealerPro product set, as well as its imagery solutions from AutosOnShow. Cazoo did not disclose the length of the contract but said it regarded BCA as a “long-term strategic partner.”

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Amazon's delivery network fleet has been a boon to auto manufacturers

Auto Editor — Wed, 25 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Amazon, the major online retailer, has been building up a fleet of 30,000 last-mile delivery vehicles since starting up its own delivery efforts in 2018 and currently handles around half of its own deliveries.

That’s good news for manufacturers of increasingly ubiquitous gray vans with the blue swoosh, which include Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Ford Motor Co.

Carmakers have been coping with declining demand from consumers this year in part by boosting deliveries to commercial customers, including Amazon and its delivery contractors. Sales to fleets, including rental-car companies and governments, are on pace for a record year, having already exceeded 2.6 million units through November, according to Cox Automotive.

“A lot of those vans are going to build out Amazon’s small-package delivery in metro areas,” said Evan Armstrong, President of Armstrong & Associates, a Milwaukee-based logistics research and consulting firm. “There’s going to be an opportunity because e-commerce is growing so fast, and these networks are growing as well.”

Armstrong estimates that e-commerce logistics costs in the U.S. have grown 19% this year to $168 billion, about half of which is spending on transportation. Commercial vehicle sales totaled more than 734,000 through November of this year, an 8.7% increase from the same period a year ago, according to Cox.

Amazon, which long relied on the U.S. Postal Service, United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. for shipments, has increasingly made door-to-door deliveries on its own. The Seattle-based company has outsourced much of the work to an army of independent contractors and used its bulk-buying power to secure better prices on their vehicles, fuel and insurance.

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Uzakrota Travel Summit names Bidroom and Tiqets as Best Startup and Scaleup

Auto Editor — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 22:00:00 +0000

Two travel companies from Amsterdam helping redefine the future of travel

This year's international Uzakrota Travel Summit awards named Bidroom hotel booking platform as Top Foreign Travel Startup and Tiqets ticketing platform as Top Foreign Travel Scaleup on the 13th of December in Istanbul, Turkey
Started in 2011, Uzakrota is considered to be Turkey's largest tourism summit that gathered an audience of over 4,000 this year
Both Bidroom and Tiqets introduced award-winning technology to the travel industry that made them internationally recognized platforms in their own category

Two Dutch travel technology companies,Tiqets and Bidroom, have been awarded for tourism industry innovation at the Uzakrota Travel Summit, Istanbul earlier this month. Bidroom, an online hotel booking community for frequent travelers, picked up the award for Top Foreign Travel Startup of the Year 2019. Fellow Dutch company Tiqets, which sells instant tickets for museums and attractions, scooped Top Foreign Travel Scaleup of the year 2019.

Over 4,000 people attended the 2019 Uzakrota Travel Summit, which brought together travel agencies, tourism tech firms, hotels, agencies serving the tourism industry and bloggers.

Both winning Dutch companies are also partners that cross-promote each other's services as they share an audience of frequent travelers who look for guaranteed best hotel prices (Bidroom) and last-minute mobile ticket booking (Tiqets).

Bidroom, which positions itself as a fair-play 'Robin Hood' of the online hotel booking industry, has now won 15 first-place awards since its foundation in 2014.

"I'd like to dedicate this award to all our far-sighted Bidroom hotel members and frequent travellers," said Bidroom CEO and Co-Founder, Michael Ros. "They believe in an efficient, user-friendly yet equitable approach to room booking, all without the burden of commissions."

Since its foundation in 2014, Tiqets' mission has been to make culture more accessible to tourists by making it easy to book museums and attractions. The company's Co-Founder and CEO, Luuc Elzinga, says Tiqets now works with 2300+ attractions around the world providing instant ticket delivery to its users' mobile phones. In October 2019, Tiqets received $60 million in Seed C financing led by Airbnb.

"Tiqets is proud to be at the forefront of the 'experiential' revolution that is transforming the travel industry and bringing more people more frequently into the greatest venues around the world" said Elzinga upon receiving the award in Istanbul.

The Uzakrota travel summit judges acknowledged Tiqets' ability to rapidly grow over the last five years. Tiqets now employs over 200 people in 13 cities around the world.

Bidroom expects to have 100 employees by year end 2020, with offices in Amsterdam, Krakow, Istanbul and Paris.

SOURCE Uzakrota Travel Summit

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Hyundai announces a $35 billion investment into autonomous technology

Auto Editor — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 00:30:00 +0000

Hyundai Motor Group recently announced that the company had invested into autonomous and self-driving technologies. The company will put $35 billion into the technologies in an effort to make South Korea a bigger player within the autonomous vehicle industry.

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in, also speaking at the event, made the bold statement that South Korea will be the first country to put totally autonomous cars on the road and laid out a goal date of 2027, the Korea Times reported.

To support local automakers, Hyundai Motor included, the state government will pony up funds to the tune of $16 billion. Automaker and government investments will be prepared for no later than 2025, according to the reports. The massive investment is all part of a campaign to move ahead of the curve when it comes to not only future powertrains, such as battery-electric cars, but also autonomous technologies. President Moon added he wants the country to lead the world in these sectors come 2030, predicting that self-driving cars will make up half of new cars sold by this same date.

The campaign will see major action surrounding regulations and traffic rules for self-driving cars. The country will work to lay out regulations to standardize insurance and driver responsibilities by 2024, according to the president's announcement.

Even with investment on this scale, many automakers have discovered the industry faces a tough road ahead. In the US, General Motors pulled back plans to commercialize its self-driving car division this year. Ford has also scaled back expectations for autonomous cars in the near future.

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Lidl begins focusing on online delivery services

Auto Editor — Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:00:00 +0000

Lidl started up as a traditional store within the United Kingdom in 1994 and soon may move into online delivery services.

The budget supermarket giant is set to launch an online delivery service, the retailer has revealed.

Lidl has grown to 22,000 employees, 760 branches and 13 distribution centres in England, Scotland and Wales since it launched in the 1990s.

But a key issue among its fanbase, which is rapidly increasing, is the lack of being able to place new orders online.

The German supermarket could be set to change this though, as it looks to hire a new "digital project manager."

The job advert reads: "We are a large, fast growing retailer with a highly differentiated approach within the UK market. Based in south-west London, this is a new role within a small, but growing team, so this is a great opportunity for the successful candidate to develop themselves within the business. You will be instrumental in helping to deliver a new online platform with the aim of acquiring new customers and driving online sales.

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DealerSocket’s announces online retail integration with F&I Express

Auto Editor — Sat, 14 Sep 2019 22:00:00 +0000

DealerSocket Inc., a software developer for the auto industry, recently announced the new combination of their Precise Price online retail platform and the F&I Express network.

This new combination will enable an even more accurate and intuitive digital retailing process for dealers and customers alike.

Precise Price, initially developed to address the strong interest among consumers to transact online from any mobile device, marked DealerSocket’s entrance into the burgeoning digital retail category. It was the first digital retailing platform to come equipped with integrated desking software, allowing for the delivery of dynamic price quotes with rebates, incentives, and all applicable taxes and fees factored into deal calculations.

“DealerSocket’s Precise Price integration with F&I Express’ Digital Media solution helps dealers and their customers have a better experience during the digital retail process,” said Brad Perry, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of DealerSocket. “Utilizing the integration within Precise Price leads to happy customers that convert and buy more backend protection packages. Our initial pilot found that dealers who used the integration saw a nearly 20% increase in backend gross.”

Now, through Precise Price’s integration with F&I Express’ Digital Media solution, the platform is able to display VIN-specific, state-specific, and dealer-specific F&I product rates and dynamic content. This powerful connection also allows digital retailers, dealer websites, menu systems and other platforms to dynamically access F&I product ratings and content.

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CarMax preparing to undertake largest auto technician hiring effort in company history

Auto Editor — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:30:00 +0000

There have been several reports about the auto industry's effort to hire and entice new auto technicians. CarMax, the used vehicle retailer, is currently going through what they are calling the largest technician and detailers hiring process in the company's history.

To help the company increase its production of vehicles for retail to customers to support the company’s continued growth, CarMax announced a nationwide plan to hire more than 850 technicians. CarMax said its highly trained associates will mostly work on reconditioning vehicles and preparing them for sale.

At 17 U.S. CarMax stores, the company will team up with job site Indeed to hold hiring events on Thursday from noon to 7 p.m. CarMax says it will interview candidates and in some cases offer jobs on the spot.

Automotive technicians, painters and detailers, and inventory associates are among the available positions.

CarMax said the following markets have the most available open positions and will host hiring events on Thursday. For more information and to RSVP to the hiring event, interested candidates can view the locations’ websites.

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