In several countries around us, it is quite normal for the automotive portal to give an indication of the asking price of the car. For example: ‘good price/average/too expensive’. With all the data the portal has at its disposal, that should in theory reasonably be possible. In the Netherlands, Autoscout24 made a brave attempt a number of years ago to launch this in beta and the market exploded in their face. With the result being the creation of VASS Netherlands. Afterwards, the project was put aside for several years. But of course, it will come back somewhere at some point.

In the US, such an asking price valuation has existed for years; it was one of the pillars of success of Cargurus.com there. Consumers loved it, and if you have the consumers, you also get the supply. So other websites like Cars.com and Autotrader.com naturally followed the good example. Consumer happy, dealer not happy.

Being transparent

It is not that you as a dealer do not like transparency! I also look every day in Indicata • Netherlands at how the prices of my cars compare to the market, where I need to make adjustments and which cars have been standing too long. Indicata looks at all facets of the car and arrives at an index and an MDS score that indicates how long the car would remain standing at that specific price.

That data does not always say everything, by the way. A Lynk & Co 01 with a black headliner and a version with a light headliner, both from August 2023 and with 30,000 km, are not the same cars, despite what the data may suggest. One is really worth slightly more than the other, but that cannot be derived from the data if, for example, you only have the chassis number.

So the data does not say everything, and I believe as an advertiser that the portal should not and cannot give a value judgment on something that I would like to sell and for which I pay the advertising costs on that platform. Because you get wrong behavior….

What is wrong behavior?

What you see around us, and also in the US, is that the advertiser starts using tricks. How do you get the lowest asking price on the car, and what can you take off in order to add something again later, when the customer is in the showroom? So a mandatory delivery package, warranty, trade-in option, mandatory financing and/or lease. No, you do not want any of that? Then the car no longer costs €13,000, but €14,500, and then that valuation of the sales price suddenly turns out to be a farce. In our country, viaBOVAG.nl is of course making a brave attempt to ban this kind of excesses.

It is of course a weak argument: not doing something because some in the market will knowingly and deliberately do something to come out on top. However, when I see in real life which things make a car interesting or not, that is not always something that can be captured in data. If then the partner with whom you advertise gives a value judgment without really having expertise, then that does not seem to me like a good partner and we are entering slippery territory. Yes, Autoscout.de and Mobile.de do it too, but that does not mean that it is ultimately in the interest of both the advertiser and the visitor.