Technology

Posted on August 14, 2019 by staff

Used car marketplace backed by VW launches in UK

Technology

A new online marketplace for used cars has launched in the UK. heycar.co.uk said it is on a mission to bring greater trust and transparency to one of the UK economy’s largest retail sectors.

The firm’s launch in the UK market follows the brand’s foundation in Germany in 2017.

Since then, it has built up an inventory of over 400,000 quality used cars from more than 4,000 dealerships in Germany, making it one of the top players in the German market.

The firm has launched with a UK inventory of over 100,000 listed vehicles from nearly 50 brands across 1,400 dealerships.

heycar is owned by Mobility Trader Holding GmbH, whose shareholders are Volkswagen Financial Services and Daimler Mobility.

The firm said it has partnered with selected dealers and only lists vehicles that are under 8 years old, have less than 100,000 miles on the clock and come with a warranty.

The firm is led by heycar by CEO Mat Moakes, who joins the new business from a role as MD of Centrica’s digital venture, Local Heroes.

Speaking at the heycar launch event in London Moakes said: “The UK used car industry is worth £50bn, yet it works inefficiently for consumers and dealers.

“Buying a used car can be like a lottery, you don’t know what you’ll get. Existing websites are often cluttered with ads, eroding consumer trust. Dealers are burdened with rising fees for listing used cars online, squeezing their margins without a guarantee of leads or sales.

“heycar won’t charge dealers a listing fee, encouraging them to display all their best quality stock. After the launch phase we will charge on a lead-generation basis, guaranteeing a win-win for our dealer partners.”

heycar is a brand owned by Mobility Trader Holding GmbH, whose shareholders are Volkswagen Financial Services and Daimler Mobility.

The heycar team conducted research with 2,000 participants in the UK, exploring consumer attitudes towards the used car industry. The research finds that ‘choosing a car to buy’ is the life decision that the largest number of Brits wish was simpler, selected by over a quarter of participants. The most important factor to simplify the car buying process is ‘better quality assurance’, selected by 43% of participants.

heycar will address these pain points by bringing simplicity, transparency and trust to the UK used car industry for both buyers and dealers.