So-called concierges ( pictured) travel out to prospective sellers, inspect the car and offer an initial ‘soft quote’. Initially using a consignment model for its peer-to-peer trades, Shift now buys the vehicles outright. Getting most of your vehicles from wholesale can create problems that are less likely with privately-owned cars, which we like to call ‘pre-loved’, as in: well maintained,” says Mr Dougherty. ex-lease or rental, Ed.) At most of our competitors, those numbers are flipped. About 80% of our inventory comes from private customers, the rest from wholesale (e.g. “One of our biggest differentiators is that we’re very effective at sourcing from retail. But it also links to Shift’s C2C-oriented philosophy. It’s an obvious way to generate an interestingly broad inventory. Those test drives are one element that distinguishes Shift from its competitors another is the age range of the used vehicles on offer: up to 10 years, where others stick to 1- or 2-year-old cars. “We thought, Wouldn’t it be great if we could bring cars to our customers for a test drive? That was very difficult to realise operationally – it was our moonshot, basically – but we did it.” We wanted to offer something new and different”, says Danforth Dougherty, one of the Chiefs of Staff at Shift. “But we wanted to be more than just an online dealership. Shift started taking shape, as an online platform that coupled the quality assurance of bricks-and-mortar dealerships with the convenience of online retail. The initial plan was to develop a third-party certification system for the used cars sold on Craigslist, but it soon turned out that customers had additional needs: they wanted help selling or reconditioning their car. And typically you need a dealer’s license to purchase cars at auction – not an option for most retail consumers. Minus: both the seller and buyer lose out to the middleman. Plus: certified and faster than the other solutions. Minus: no certification, and financing is still separate. Find a used car on Craigslist (America’s most popular online classified advertisements website).Minus: the process can take a long time – even longer than buying a new car, given the variability in inventory quality. Plus: your vehicle is checked and certified. Go to a dealership that sells used cars.Basically, if you want to buy a used car in the States, you have three options: George Arison, one of those Google alumni and currently CEO at Shift, saw the problem with auto remarketing in the US. “Europe may in fact be way ahead when it comes to vehicle remarketing, because the US still has a ways to go,” says Hannah Golden, Communications Manager at Shift. Ironically, that notion is a bit antiquated. “This is ridiculous who has the time to get appointments at five banks?” That may not be the literal quote, but it’s a fair rendition of the frustration with financing a used car that drove a couple of Google alumni to look for ways to improve the process.Ī lot of European still consider America as a place where the future is born and matures, before it crosses the ocean to the Old Continent. The San Franciscans are solidifying their grip on the West Coast, with an IPO looming on the horizon. Plenty of room for hard-working disruptors like Shift to dream big. Yet online players like Carvana, Vroom and CarMax control no more than 5% of that market. The US used-vehicle market is worth about $1.2 trillion (€1.07 tn).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |