Online car sales to increase in 2012

Date: 17/02/2012 17:07:35

The online car industry is likely to see an increase in the number of sales across the coming year, according to new predictions for the industry.

Recorded activity for the year so far has reached exceptional levels, British Car Auctions (BCA) has reported.

The company has announced a new record has been set for weekly sales of vehicles to online bidders.

BCA has announced it sold 3,198 vehicles through Live Online between January 16th and 21st, with more than £3 million paid in total for these vehicles.

In addition, Live Online accounted for 25 per cent of all the sales recorded by BCA during that week, which is an increase on the 20 per cent that was typical for sales each week during 2011.

A total of 2,000 individual bidders took part in the auctions over the period, with 1,220 individual buyers taking deliveries of new cars.

Commercial director D'Vidis Jacobs commented on the success seen at the sales and noted online grew again significantly for the company last year, with the Live Online, Bid Now, Buy Now and e-Auction channels used by the BCA all seeing a combined increase of around 14 per cent across the board.

However, he forecast that sales through the online channel has not yet reached its peak and still has some room to grow in the coming years, especially as the company is taking more steps to make buying a car over the web even more accessible.

"This year will see further enhancements to our web-based platforms with the launch of Live Online 2 later this year and we expect our online sales volume to grow again significantly in 2012 as a result," Mr Jacobs added.

The BCA is the UK and Europe's biggest vehicle auction company and hosts more than 100 sales each week of a huge number of different cars and vans.