Car Dealer Podcast Oct 31, 2025

Group 1 drops JLR, Catherine Faiers to leave Auto Trader, and Vauxhall MD's take on the EV market - with Scott Sibley, episode 229

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Car

Renault Twingo

The Renault Twingo is a small car made by the French company Renault. It's designed for city driving and is easy to park and navigate through tight spaces.

Car

Renault Clio

The Renault Clio is a small car made by the French company Renault. It's known for being easy to drive and good on fuel, making it a popular choice for city driving.

Car

Mini

The Mini is a small, stylish car that's fun to drive and very popular, especially in cities.

Car

Ford Fiesta

The Ford Fiesta is a small, budget-friendly car that's easy to drive and great for new drivers.

Car

Vauxhall Corsa

The Vauxhall Corsa is a small car that's practical and economical, making it a good choice for everyday use.

Car

The Range Rover is a fancy, big car that can drive on rough roads and is very comfortable inside. People talk about it a lot because it's stylish and powerful, but some owners have had problems with it breaking down.

Car

Bmw 1

The BMW 1 Series is a small luxury car that is fun to drive and has a lot of nice features. It's good for city driving and comes in different engine options.

Term

body kit

A body kit is a set of parts that you can add to a car to make it look better and improve how it moves through the air. It usually includes things like new bumpers and side panels.

Car

Ford Ka

The Ford KA is a small car made by Ford, great for driving around the city. It's known for being easy to park and good on gas.

Term

buyers fee

When you buy a car at an auction, you often have to pay an extra fee called a buyers fee. This is an additional cost on top of the car's price.

Term

auction fees

When buying or selling a car at an auction, there are extra costs called auction fees. These fees can change depending on where the auction is held.

Term

EVs

EVs stands for electric vehicles. These are cars that run on electricity instead of gas, which can be better for the environment and cheaper to drive.

Term

used car market

The used car market is where people buy and sell cars that have been owned by someone else before. These cars usually cost less than new ones.

Car

Volkswagen Egolf

The Volkswagen e-Golf is an electric car based on the regular Golf model. It's designed for everyday driving and is known for being easy to use and efficient.

Car

Audi Q7

The Audi Q7 is a large, fancy SUV that can carry a lot of people and luggage. It's known for being comfortable and having lots of high-tech features.

Concept

electric cars

Electric cars run on electricity instead of gasoline. They are becoming more popular because they can help reduce pollution and are often cheaper to run.

Term

aftermarket

The aftermarket is where you can find car parts and accessories that are not made by the car's original manufacturer. It's where you go for upgrades or repairs that are different from what came with the car.

Term

CarPlay

CarPlay is a system that lets you use your iPhone in your car. It shows your phone's apps on the car's screen, so you can easily listen to music or get directions while driving.

Car

Ford Puma Gen E

The Ford Puma Gen E is a new electric SUV from Ford. It's part of their effort to make more electric cars available and is eligible for a government grant to help buyers.

Brand

JLR

JLR is short for Jaguar Land Rover, which makes high-end cars and SUVs. They are known for their luxury and quality.

Car

Range Rover

The Range Rover is a fancy SUV made by Land Rover. It's known for being very comfortable and good for driving off-road, which is why many people love it and keep buying it.

Car

Defender

The Defender is a tough SUV from Land Rover, built for off-road adventures. It's very popular among people who like outdoor activities and need a reliable vehicle.

LIVE

The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by AutoTrader. Jon, do you know why I, like nearly 14,000 other dealers, work with AutoTrader?

No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me.

Well, with around 84 million consumer visits each month, it connects us with more engaged car buyers than anyone else in the UK.

And there's the ability to reserve cars when the dealership is closed.

Ah, so you can stick to your strict 8pm bedtime.

Exactly. And the AutoTrader team are always on hand to offer their insights, ensure we get the very best from our package and ultimately sell more cars.

Well, that's good because you are going to need all the help you can get.

Oi, less of that. Dealers, if you want to find out more, log on to trade.autotrader.co.uk.

Welcome back to the Cardiola podcast. If you haven't listened before, we pick our favorite stories of the week and ask an automotive industry guest to choose whose stories were the best.

I'm Rebecca Chaplin, contributing editor here at Cardiola Magazine.

And today I am standing in for your usual blonde-haired host, John Ray, who is off on a launch somewhere.

I can't remember what country he said he was in, but he did not think he would be able to do a podcast at the same time.

But joining me today is our regular on the podcast, James Baggott. How are you doing today?

Fine, thanks.

You don't like being described as regular?

No, this is strange, isn't it? This is a little bit like couples' therapy, isn't it?

Of course, Scott.

Yeah, but I never see you anymore, so this is a great opportunity to find out about what you've been up to.

You can talk about your little impromptu spa treat that Mike Brewer sorted out for you.

Oh, God.

I did think I was like, what would John have picked out to talk to you about this week?

What can I talk about? But luckily that just popped in front of my mind.

Funny that, isn't it? Yeah, funny that. Yeah, this is all good.

Well, I should probably tell the listeners what happened.

This week I've been out with Mike Brewer this week, filming some stuff for the Use Car Awards.

Did a little bit of a walk around of his new expanded dealership.

But my colleagues, including John Ray of this podcast, had forgotten that the clocks had gone back,

which meant that we ran out of light very early on,

which meant that, unfortunately, I had to stay up in Warwick

and the only hotel that was available was a spa hotel, which didn't go down well with Rebecca, did it?

No, it didn't particularly go down well.

Well, that was at home looking after the children on my own.

I'm doing this for the listeners who might be coming to Cardio Live,

and it might turn out that we'll end up using it as the hotel for Cardio Live this year.

So it's double up its actual work somehow.

I don't want to double down on this, but it was very nice.

It was very nice.

Moving swiftly on, obviously John Ray's not here, is he?

Can you remember where he is?

He's in Paris, looking at the new Renault Twingo.

I mean, he does some strange things, doesn't he?

I'd quite like to do that though.

It does mean you don't get to see his hat, which has obviously been a big feature of the podcast.

Annoyingly, last week, we lost the video recording,

which meant that nobody could see it, and they can't see it this week.

I interviewed Derek Martin this week for a feature about used cars,

and the first thing he said is, John, nice hat.

Oh, there, anyway.

What have you been up to, Rebecca, apart from looking after our children?

Not much, I don't know.

My mind is just an empty hole, I think,

because anyway, I've already described it that way to John.

I was trying to remember talking about Cardio Live,

I was trying to remember what we did last year,

and it's just an absolute blank.

I don't know what's going on anymore.

Yeah, I don't know really.

But I do so much planning stuff, it's not really interesting for people to hear about

planning things for podcasts live in Cardio Live.

Shall we move on to our guest instead then?

Yeah, we can do.

Can I ask you one question first?

I've talked about cars.

I'm sure you've already talked about road tests the year on the podcast,

but you obviously drew, I'm not expecting you to give away

what has won the used car awards, cars of the year.

I wondered what you thought about them as these cars

are slightly older.

Are you excited about the winners of the used car award cars?

Yeah, I am.

I look at them slightly differently now, having sold a few.

We just see the price over the top of them.

Exactly, yeah, having sold a few of them.

And obviously I can't give away what's won,

but there are some fantastic cars in there.

And then they're normally the sort of vehicles

that consumers love,

which means you're going to sell them quickly as a used car dealer

because nobody likes a warranty claim.

So that sort of features quite highly when it comes to this year's winners.

But yeah, no, I enjoyed it.

Mike really enjoyed driving them.

So yeah, that will be revealed in the not too distant future.

You must get some sent over.

But yeah, it's only a couple of weeks.

Yeah, four weeks basically.

But you must get some sent over now

because they obviously they're based on how fast they sell

and things like that aren't they?

That you just go, no chance.

Yeah, exactly that.

Winners, I stand by them are very, very good cars

and I've enjoyed driving them this week.

Excellent.

So that segues nicely on to a serial award winner

at the Used Car Awards, another award that you've had.

Our guest this week is of course, Scott Sibley

of Redcoat Lodge and also of Dealerway.

How has this week been for you, Scott?

Hi.

Very tough, I would say.

I think it's just been a tough few months business wise.

Yeah, just very, very slow for the last three or four months.

People will be pleased to hear that

because I've heard that from a lot of people.

I think so yeah, I think so.

It's our month end of the day,

but it's our financial year end of the day as well.

So it was like a panic to get everything in voiced off and so on.

So I think as far as October goes,

we're finished probably about 20 cars.

We've done over 100, but we did,

we've probably finished maybe about 20 behind where we'd like to be.

So it's been climbing the mountain as they say,

and then we'll start again tomorrow.

Scott, tell those people listening then

a little bit about your business.

I've been up to see it myself,

incredibly impressed by the setup you've got,

but for those people who don't know anything about your business,

explain what you've got.

So we've got three sites with which are within a mile of each other.

We've got an ex-main dealer site at Shiremore,

which used to be high on die,

and see it, I think, back in the day.

So we've had that site now for 13 years, 12 or 13 years.

That holds about 150.

So we've got a sales team on there

and we've got a Bosch car service centre on there as well,

where we have mechanics, MOTs and so on,

valid departments on there as well.

And then the short journey away is the new select site,

which is what we started that as a cheaper range of cars,

but we've moved the price bracket up on that a little bit.

We started off at about 6,000, 7,000 and above,

and we moved it up to 10,000 and above,

but then I think we're probably still missing

a little bit of a trick with some of the cheaper cars,

where there's a demand for them,

you know, for drivers who've just passed a test and so on.

So we're going to have a little look at those

to see how that goes.

That site just does sales and that will hold

pretty good about 80 or 90 on there,

which is nice little site.

And then round the corner from there is the prep centre,

where I'm based, so the prep centre,

we've got MOT lane, five ramps,

and we've also got the body shop in there,

which has got two commercial ovens.

And we've got a big storage yard here,

where we'll bring all the cars and then prep them.

We have about 50, 55 members of staff

and we're trying to sell about,

the business is set up for, you know,

150 to 200 sales a month,

but we haven't been achieving that this year

because of I think what's going on in the world

and the government and the country and so on,

so our sales are a little bit down,

so it hasn't particularly been a very good year,

but you know, we'll battle on.

Scott, that's an incredibly impressive setup you've got there.

Tell me where it all began.

How did you get into the motor trade

and how have you built it into this business you've got now?

So I started selling cars from home,

which is Redgate Lodge,

and I was working for a computer,

my friend had a computer company

at the time selling computer games,

so there was shops and things like that,

and then he asked me would I go and work for him

in that business, which is retail,

which I did that for 10 years,

and during those 10 years,

I would always just buy and sell the odd car from,

you know, buy them from the auction and sell them from home,

and I used to always think I could get myself an extra,

I don't know, back then was probably an extra 30, 40 grand a year,

just selling cars.

I stuck with Reynolds Cleo's because I didn't know anything about the motor trade

and once I just sold those,

I got one advert and I got to know the brand

and the models and the faults

and had a bit of an eye for the value,

so that's all I did was just stick to Reynolds Cleo's

and that worked, so I did that for years,

and then there was a selling,

so many would sell like,

would you keep out seven at home,

and they were selling really well,

I would prep them, my wife would sell them during the day from home

and it worked really well,

so there was a little unit came available,

which is about two miles up the road from where we are

in the small industry,

and we would call it Redgate Lloyd's

the small car specialist,

because I thought if I can just stick to small cars

and have a little bit of a niche

and where it was based,

it took a bit of bed linen,

so it was a little bit out of the north of Newcastle,

so I thought by having, you know,

10 Reynolds Cleo's in stock

and 10 Minis and 10 Fiestas and 10 Courses,

that would be enough to drive people to the business

because they wouldn't come and see one car

that would come and think, well, there's a choice of 10,

so it worked, that little plan worked

and we were up there for about three years

and then we moved the business down to the Shermore site,

which that was a big step,

that was risking everything,

that was a very nervous time,

should I say,

and we went down there

with about 25, 30 cars in stock

on a site what can take, you know, 100, 150,

so we've spaced them all out

and then, you know,

built it up from there, really,

and because it was, we're down in Newcastle,

then the small car specialist,

the little niche thing,

we probably didn't need that as much,

so that's when I started looking at other models

and makes and so on

and going to the options more,

I left where I was working and then I started,

I suppose, running the business,

as a dealership,

just getting all the different makes and models in,

learning as I went along,

probably blew loads of money because I had no experience,

I'd never worked at the main dealers

or in the motor trade at all, really,

so I was just finding my way

and it was difficult, some people would help

and advise and then some traders,

they didn't really want to share, you know,

which paint they were using or workshops they were using

and back then, which was 15 years ago,

I don't think the car sales dealer group

was around the Facebook groups and things like that,

where I think you can learn a lot through,

you know, just reading some of the comments on that,

so there wasn't that then,

so it was a bit of a tough start, I suppose.

So Scott, that's been quite a journey,

you've picked up some incredible awards

over time, some used car awards,

some from lesser known award ceremonies,

but you've picked up many over the years,

what's the secret to the success?

I think awards breed awards,

I said that from the start,

so I think if you get your name out there

and you start applying for some awards

and you constantly attend the awards events

and you're there and if you put the,

what's the word, I've lost the word,

the application that you submit the awards,

you put that in and put a lot of thought into that

and a lot of detail into that

and look at the category

and look at what you think the judge is actually looking for.

I think that's half a chance

because I would imagine there'll be a lot of award entries,

that's the word,

where they're not answering the question

for the judges to read,

so I think take your time putting all the entries in properly

and then just hope that you're in one of those short lists

or the finalists.

And you mentioned at the start of this conversation

that it's been a little bit quieter for you.

What do you think's happened to the industry?

It certainly dropped off a little bit for us

since probably September time.

We had a very good September,

but as soon as it changed into October it got quiet.

What do you think the problem is?

The only thing I can put my finger on,

I think people are hanging on for this budget.

I don't really get into politics and things like that.

I only really see what I see on the TV,

but this Labour Party,

they don't seem to be doing a very good job

and everything what's going on in the UK really.

I think it's a bit doom and gloom out there,

so I think normal consumers might be concerned

that the tax is going to go up

maybe, I don't know,

ten or a month or something like that on the wages

and whatever big tax issues are planned,

so I think people are maybe just holding off a little bit.

That would be the only other thing,

because kids are back to school,

I know it's been half term this week,

we always look in the motor trade for different reasons why,

but that would be the only thing I could think of was.

The fact that the budget is so late this year

is not helping,

it's getting very close to Christmas at that point in time.

The January sales really now at this point in time.

It does normally kick off in January, doesn't it?

Are you sort of looking forward to that now?

Well, sometimes we've been having quite a good December,

the last maybe six years,

December's used to always be

just like a bit of a switch off waste of time,

but I think people do a lot of Christmas shopping earlier now,

and I think the high street,

they bring all the sales on,

because they're competing against each other,

like in September or November sometimes,

and a lot of people are getting their Christmas shopping done early,

so I don't know if that's helped with December sales,

or for us, December's haven't been as bad as they used to be.

And then January,

usually the first two weeks,

is a little bit slow to get it going,

and then it normally takes off.

I seem to remember January this year,

we didn't get the massive increase what we'd normally get.

Are you finding it hard to get hold of stock at the moment?

What's the deal, as I say,

are explaining that the auctions are a little bit softer at the moment,

but they're still struggling to get the stuff that they want.

What are you seeing?

I think stock's probably always a problem,

but I've got two buyers,

and they look at Carwell and Motorway,

and then I do the auctions.

I was just on the auctions this morning,

and as everybody knows,

if you can buy the cars privately,

there's a better selection out there,

and you have got a chance.

The negatives are when you arrive there to get the car,

and it's not as described.

You've got that hurdle to get over.

And then the auction cars,

you can sometimes get the odd problem with one,

because they're not driven and you can't drive them.

Is one better than the other with prep?

Probably not, I don't think.

I don't think one's particularly better.

We've bought private cars and had some horror stories

when, like, say, Carwell,

Motorway used their transport drivers

to drop them off and the engines are gone,

they're outland, you know,

where that car went through the auction,

the appraisal might have picked it up,

so it's just a bit hard,

so getting the choice of cars,

I suppose it's just cherry-picking cars

from all the different platforms

to try and get them,

but in prices, yes, it's the usual,

the nice cars with the spec,

everybody's fighting for those ones,

so they're more money,

cars with higher miles don't seem to do particularly very well.

You've got a big team now,

as the business has grown,

what do you spend your days doing?

Is it a case of you can pick the stuff

that you really enjoy doing now?

I would say I spend my day

approving cars,

I would probably work closer with the buyers,

so, you know, we go through what cars

we're going to buy,

what we're looking for,

and then I stare at the screen

for hours looking at it all priced correctly,

I've got like an OCD thing,

so I do that every single day,

I do price changes every single day,

even if it's just £100,

I'll change the cars and

be more aggressive with the pricing,

really from the start,

so to try and get the days to turn down

and get the cars moving,

so we'll make work on a smaller margin,

but we'll get them done, so I sit and do that,

and then I work with Anthony,

who's our marketing manager,

we've obviously just launched

which is quite new,

it's under six months old,

so we're tinking around with that,

I don't think there's any rule book on it,

but we're having a little go behind the scenes

of the dealership,

and we're doing like that.

Are you enjoying doing that?

Yes, it does a bit of...

I suppose it's another thought

what you have to do,

think of what the episode's going to be

and how well it's going to be received,

and

yeah, you look at the people who do it well,

trying to get inspiration from them,

we did something with the thumbnails this week,

we did one which we actually quite liked,

it was to do with Ben,

and the video didn't get many views,

so we changed the thumbnail around,

so I think that we had Joe Betty on one of our podcasts

and he says it's a bit of an art,

getting the thumbnail right,

without having the clickbait,

everybody wants doom and gloom like I bought a Range Rover

and it blew up, so everybody's going to click on that,

you don't really want any happy stories,

there's a balance where we're trying to do

a behind the scenes

day in the life of a car dealership

type of episode,

and then we'll do some episodes which are more

like what we would call a feature,

so it's going out this week,

we've got a BMW 1,

so use a new shape, a little white one,

we'll call it a red gate lodge revamps

and we've had that car fully re-sprayed,

body kit wheels

and so on,

so we recorded the episode for that,

so going off the legs of Matt Armstrong

when he buys a car and it's been in an accident

and he's fixing it and things like that,

he seems to get a good

viewing numbers up,

so we'll put that one out this week and see how that one goes.

There's a lot of time and effort goes into these though,

isn't it?

You really do have to think about producing content,

I know that,

only too well.

Why are you doing it?

What's the thinking behind

launching the YouTube channel?

I don't know,

when you're quiet,

you take all these boxes in your business

and you think we're on TikTok, we're on here,

we do this one, we're on AutoTrader,

we've done this, we've done that

and it was something which we didn't really have,

we set the channel up during lockdown

and there was a friend of mine who does

wedding videos and he had no

obviously weddings on, so we did some car review videos

which we quite enjoyed doing

and we'll put those out there,

but we should have really pushed the channel more.

I think it was probably Steve

and my partner were dealer way

where we started doing the podcast

and then he was saying to me,

do you not watch this one and that one on YouTube

and I said I don't even watch YouTube

and I've never really watched YouTube or had an interest in it

and he thought I was mad because I didn't watch YouTube

so I started watching some of these dealers

from down south do them

like Joe, Betty and all these other people

and they've got these big channels with big followers

and then I was speaking to Joe

and obviously messaging to him

saying how

the idea was with our channel

it's not for a monetary value

I know you can get money and all that

but it was more just to

encourage customers to come in

and think they're a nice bunch of people

they prep the car as well

and they've got the body shop

and we'll go there for a service

and we'll go there to buy a car

we'll go there for and so on

so that was the idea

to get more footfall at the business

where the idea came from

for that product

So dealer way

it was myself really, I was struggling

to dispose of my part exchangers

we would have two or three traders

we would contact

which is very long winded, it was hard work

trying to get bids on cars

and then they would say they'd have them

and wouldn't turn up for them

it was just like a hindrance

and then with us being an independent dealer

not a main dealer when we send them to the auction

it would just go in the POTX direct line

up in the auction, so the cars

wouldn't achieve what they were really worth

and I used to always say if you could put a piece

of paper on the window and put them in the auction

and say, you know, we'll check the gear box

it drives fine, this is good and that's good

you know, you'd have more of a chance

but you can't do that with the auction

so I set up a Facebook group

which was just more for a bit of fun

really POTX Gold and I thought if I put all my POTX

exchangers in there

I'll dispose of them that way

and we'd just start doing them like that

important thing was to make sure they'd been driven

which would give a

potential trade buyer

confidence in coming up and buying the cars

because we're putting our name to it

also they could come and buy and drive

the car before they paid for it

so that's where it started and I would start

and put the cars under the POTX Gold group

and that grew and we got to about

I think there's about 5,000 or 6,000 dealers

in there or members

and it kept on growing and then I messaged

my business partner through

for a dealer way and I'd said I had this idea

for an idea

where we would

possibly migrate the people from the group

over onto the app and would have to

develop an app and because Steven's

obviously very technical and I'm not

he was the perfect choice so we knew each other

for a few years previously

so we just like

mapped out what we needed this app to do

and looked at what was out there in the market

which Steven really did

and he tried to register with different

the competition if you like

some people were getting back to them

I don't know if it works, the odd one might have got back to them

and to see about setting up accounts

on their systems and

we just thought there was an opening there in the market

for it to help, it was mainly initially

was probably to help independent dealers

dispose of their POTX exchanges

because unless they had the favourites

car dealers coming around or

put the cars in the auction

sometimes there wasn't an easy way out

so that was the

thought behind it

You've changed the pricing structure recently haven't you

and

when I look at it

it's a cheap way for people to buy stock isn't it

and actually

to dispose of stock, you don't charge people

to dispose of their stuff do you

No it's free, it's free to sell

and then it's £99 plus fat

is a bias fee and

I think you know auctions are £5-600

and you know motorway car well

so compared to the

the main people out there

who would offer in that service

it is much cheaper

and

we've got operating costs there

we've got staff there to cover

there's costs for the app

there's ongoing development with the app

that you have to pay for maintenance on the app

so we do have a cost

so that's how we had to look at it

the original plan was to have it as a subscription channel

where you just pay £80 a month

for as many cars as you want

and we thought a lot of the people from the

Facebook group would have migrated over

and a lot did but there was obviously

thousands who haven't

and I think what we learned from the early days

was a lot of people on the Facebook

they're buying cell cars on Facebook

and they might not be fat registered

they might not have trade insurance

and they just do it for fun

in the background like I used to do

about in the day

so it's like a different market

because you actually use

dealer way yourself to sell

your part exchanges

and you do very well out of it don't you

it's a profit centre for you

am I right in thinking that?

I've got Stephen downstairs

who's one of my buyers and he does the vehicle

disposal so when he puts a car on dealer

I give him £25 bonus

so he just puts a log through and puts his commission

through at the end of the month

and he's fanatical about really quite likes doing them

so he'll wash them down

take them out for a drive

does the full description then put them out there

in our cars it's rare we don't sell a car

it's very very rare and if we don't sell one

what we do is we then prep out ourselves

and we'll just retail it

so I think there was a Volvo on there

the other week which didn't sell for whatever reason

I don't know why and we prepped it

sold it I'm sure we got like £15

under a £2 grand out of it

it was like a missed opportunity

for somebody who just didn't fancy

the look of the car

yeah and we sold them

when I used to put them on the group I used to joke and say they were gone in 60 seconds

because there was a lot of people

would be frustrated because they'd missed the car

so I was putting the part of exchange in the group and they'd be like

I would have had that I would have had that one

so when we built the app we put an auction feature in

or buy it now so every car I put on

I put it on as a 3D auction

and I just

I'm not greedy with it that's the key

it's nice to get trade profits

and everybody's out here to make money in the motor trade

but I put it on there

I work out the maths and I think it needs 500 quid

to the pain it needs that so

auto trader retails that

so somebody's buying it

they want to be like £15 under a quid profit

and that's how I used to always do it

and leave somebody some margin in the car

and it just always worked for us

and what we do when I put them on a 3D auction

I put the reserve on

very

like low sometimes I put the reserve

at less than what the car actually stands me

so I could be putting it on there

I don't know two or three and a quid loss

but what I found is when the car meets reserve

when people see that that car

is going to be sold more bids starting coming

for those cars

and a lot of car dealers I speak to

have that sort of network of

buyers like you used to have

and they just find it a little bit easier

to do that because it's simply a case of

take a picture of the car in a couple of details

and just fire it out on WhatsApp

you're trying to make D the way

as easy as that aren't you I mean

you've seen some things that your team are doing

where dealers can just send

their cars via WhatsApp is that right

yeah we'll do the

like the concierge service what we call it

and yeah the team

in there they'll list the cars for

dealers so if dealers didn't have time to do it

they can do it they also do

if a car doesn't sell

and it's not far away

from the reserve they'll speak to the buyer

and the seller and they'll say you know

have you got another £50 or £100 we'll get there

they'll if you like get the deal on

in the background so they do

that and that's where we've seen

the WhatsApp groups have been really good because

we'll put a car on there where it might say

you know it's only £100 off reserve

and somebody looks in the WhatsApp group and they think

oh actually they might have missed it through the app

and they'll have a go at that so the WhatsApp group

has been really popular

and I think the people who are putting the cars on there

if the car hasn't met reserve they know that

we've got these WhatsApp groups with

you know a few hundred people in there

in the background to get the cars sold

where's the big challenges

with that business

I mean it's a tech business isn't it

so it must be very different to what you used to

I mean where are the challenges

I think the main challenge is getting cars on

because we've got buyers on there

we'll have like I don't know

I think it's about three three and a half thousand

accounts at the moment which are set up

and there's more buyers on there than there are

sellers

and we've got main dealers on there with accounts

super car you know type of dealers as well

and

so there's a lot of

there's a lot of buyers but when

the challenge is getting more cars on there

and I think what the problem is I think

a couple of things is I think the motor trades

sometimes people are creatures of habit

and they'll send the car to a traditional auction to sell

or they'll ring the trader friend

down the road and they don't like

change and then the other challenge is

if people tried for the first time

they've got a car

which they think we haven't been able to retail

this and Billy the trader

doesn't want it and if I send it at the auction

nobody's going to buy it in there because the wrong colour

let's put it on dealer way and see what this dealer

way is all about and dealer way isn't magic

that's the thing and so somebody might use it

once and go oh that was a waste of time

the car didn't sell but it was probably never

a seller do you know what I mean

so if people put some some cars

on there what other people want to buy

that have a better experience I mean

we've got main dealers on there there's a dealer

a scooter dealer and they've sold over a hundred cars

they love it and

you know you put your car on

and depending on how you set your auction

whether it's one day or three days

you can sell their car and they've picked up and gone off site

within two or three days may not

within two or three days gone money in the bank

I get the review because I get the review system

going through and I build my reviews up

and then I send them a review who's bought the car

and it just seems to work

I find it really really easy

yeah I mean I've tried it

I've sold a Ford KA

that was sticking about

sticking around for us we couldn't sell it

I'm not sure why stuck it on dealer way

it was like you say gone in three days

and we got back what we paid for it

which was what counted really okay we didn't make a profit

but we just wanted to wipe our feet

so I was pleased with that

the other thing is I just wanted to touch on with this

is you've mentioned there those low fees

you know 99 pound for buyers fee

I mean if they're people are buying from auction

at five 600 pound fees

surely that means that the person selling the car

is getting less for the car

correct correct yeah

because all dealers work retail

back so we look at a car in auction

a traditional auction and we'll say

well first of all you've got your auction fees

well you've got the VAT first of all

but you've got your auction fees which are five or six hundred pounds

you've got to take that in and then

bits of paint work, alloy wheels and

before you actually get it back for your workshop prep

so that's the

the sellers really

paying the auction fee, ultimately buyers

getting the fee to pay

but the seller is getting

five or six hundred pound less for the car

and if you're a small

dealer group and you're disposing to say

twenty or thirty cars a week

and you're getting five hundred

pound less per car, across the year

it does add up

but as I say creatures are habitant

you know you get your pot exchanges

on the weekend, you ring the auction and you say

can you come collect these, the turnip on the transporter

and maybe it's the Wednesday or Thursday

they then process them through their

online system and then if it sells

first auction it might

sell and then you get paid the week after that

so that's a two week process

providing the car actually sells straight away

on dealer way it's

you know it can be one or two days and the car's gone and the money's

back in your bank so when you've got dealers and they've got

you know huge funding and stocking plans

and they've got all this money tied up and they might

end up having three or four hundred grand

tied up in pot exchanges on the way to the auction

waiting to sell there's a way of getting

that off there by doing that

but I mean I always said from the store dealer way was never there

to take from the auctions

or replace the auctions it's just an alternative

it's you know it could be

a faster selling process

because the auctions will always be there and would always need the auctions there

and when you know on dealer

where we say the cars are driven

and you know if there's you know

various faults with them we're very honest

and truthful with them auctions putting through you know

they've got the grading system but they couldn't be expected

to drive you know 300 cars

it's impossible for them

so the auctions will always be there

and they're a massive part of the industry

bit of a mindset shift

for some dealers I think they just need to get

their head around it and it sounds like they should

give it a go if they want to do that

plug time Scott where can they

find out more information

well if they're just going to dealerway.co.uk

and then if they click on that to set up an account

you can upload the

insurance details and you know your account details

there's two levels of account there's gold and silver

silver's for the people

who haven't got you know motor trade insurance

and VAT and things like that

and then your main account holders

you just set them up and just set up your profile

and then set up your filters

there's a lot of dealers don't set up the filters

so you can get filters set up with notifications on

when there's cause what you're looking for

it should just notify you when somebody lists one

but with you know

we sell lots of cars through dealers

through dealerway and there's

a way as a platform is selling cars

every single day so it's proven

to be you know very popular

but I think it's for dealers who haven't

used it they need to you know let you

just log on get an account

set up and then put some you know have a

play around with the app we've also got

I mean Martin and Lee they were in

Cumbria last week and they were speaking to some dealers

over there and what they can do

is they can come out and visit dealers

and they can spend a day at a dealership

and what they do is they'll work out who the disposal

manager is or the head valader

whoever's going to be responsible for putting

the cars on and they can spend a day with them

and just show them how the app works

how to photograph a car and so on

I mean we've got hours down to about

I mean not the test drive but the photograph from

the cars and the upload it's about

10 minutes if that

but if you're disposing

through the auction and your auction

you know you're 500 quid less

on a car so Stephen gets his

25 quid I'm still better off

it sounds like it's worth the effort

that was a very solid plug there

Scott thank you for that I wish

you all the best with the dealer way business

and good luck in the used car awards

that are coming up in the not too distant future

and thank you for joining us

today it's been nice to see you

thank you thanks very much

super right Rebecca probably

time for some stories

now a quick word from one of our

Group 1 drops JLR, Catherine Faiers to leave Auto Trader, and Vauxhall MD's take on the EV market - with Scott Sibley, episode 229

Renault Twingo

Renault Clio

Mini

Ford Fiesta

Vauxhall Corsa

Land Rover Range Rover

Bmw 1

body kit

Ford Ka

buyers fee

auction fees

EVs

used car market

Volkswagen Egolf

Audi Q7

electric cars

aftermarket

CarPlay

Ford Puma Gen E

JLR

Range Rover

Defender

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