Yesterday was the Automotive Remarketing Event at the Louwman Museum in The Hague! First of all, before we get to the conference: how wonderful it is to look at all those museum pieces with their stories. Hopefully those beautiful cars will be preserved for posterity for many years to come. We came, of course, for the content, the networking and the coming together with one another — great fun!

But what actually is remarketing? Is it broader than marketing used cars to B2B or B2C customers? I wrestle with that question in my own shop. The margins are good: more than €2,000, and the turnaround time is around 9 to 10 times the stock. And yet it gnaws at me: it can and must be done better.

It brings me back to a conversation I recently had with my friend Arjen de Jong and his Turkish colleagues in a Sprinter on the way to the remarketing lanes of Van Mossel, Ayvens and Leaseman Car Care. The discussion was about the fact that the KIAs and the Fiats had a turnaround time of 30 days with them, and that the premium cars, the BMWs, stayed longer.

That wasn’t seen as a problem, because after all these were premium models and those simply stay around longer. Which makes me wonder why a premium car should have to stay longer. Why can you find the customer after 60 days, but not after 30 days? Why? Are you too expensive right away? Is your asking price based on 110% of the index, only to end up at 100% of the then-applicable index after 60 days, so that on top of margin you simply lose standing costs too? Why?

Why

I just kept asking that question. Why would we think this way? Yes, I used to think that way too: that 4x4s and off-road vehicles were allowed to stay longer, because they were simply ‘special’ cars. How foolish I was! Every car costs money, every day costs money — 25 euros, 50 euros, what’s the fair amount? So you have to sell faster, raise the alarm sooner, do more marketing at the start of the cycle, because the best day to sell a car is the first day! That’s when the car is most interesting in the market. The next day there are already new cars screaming for attention.

Conversations

That’s also how I see the conversations at Marktplaats with our customers about these topics. Yes, a daily top listing, a weekly top listing, bumping a listing up — it all costs money, but if those investments bring you exactly the VDP views that help you reach that buyer and shorten your turnaround time, then that’s a far greater saving. You just don’t get an invoice for it; it’s invisible until your CFO puts in black and white what a day really costs.

So I wondered aloud why that BMW couldn’t be sold sooner. What would you have to do to pull that off? A better pricing strategy? Could be. Or a different marketing strategy? That too is possible. But the one thing you shouldn’t do or want is to see it as confirmation that a premium car has a longer turnaround time. Above all, ask yourself why that time is longer, because standing days cost money too. More money than you think. Above all, ask the question: Why?