Kiwis Selling 200 Cars Per Day Online

Tuesday, 15 June 2004, 11:29 am
Press Release: Trademe

New Zealanders have embraced online car buying undertaking 200,000 automotive listings on Trade Me Motors since its launch eight months ago with growth tipped to double by years’ end.

“Last month we passed the 200 car sales per day milestone and we think that rate will double to 400 by December,” said Trade Me general manager, Sam Morgan.

“We thought online automotive auctions would be popular, but the rapid growth rate has surprised us, with people listing 820 automotive items every day on average.”

Online car buying has proven particularly popular with 20-30 year olds who make up 33% of buyers, and 30-40 year olds who account for 28%. By contrast older people have been slower to buy online, with buyers over 60 making up less than 3%.

“As of today we have 20,000 live listings on Trade Me Motors including 11,000 cars, 500 trucks and 2000 motorcycle items. Spare parts is also a big growth area.”

Trade Me Motors is a joint venture between Trade Me, New Zealand’s largest online marketplace, and AutoBase, a nationwide car dealer network. The joint venture also features partnerships with the Consumers’ Institute and Vehicle Information Reports (VIR) and is the largest automotive site in New Zealand according to Red Sheriff.

“By making use of VIR’s vehicle reports and car surveys available from Consumer Online, buyers can get a car checked out without having to see it, and then use the online market to get a competitive price.”

Trade Me Motors lets private sellers run a classified or an auction which can stay live until it sells. Traders run classified advertisements only. All sellers get a monthly audited audience of over 230,000 New Zealanders who typically visit the site seven times a month.

To mark the 200,000 milestone Trade Me Motors is putting a 2000 Subaru WRX STI up for auction with a $1 reserve.

The latest Red Sheriff figures showed Trade Me had over 707,800 unique visitors during May 2004. The average time spent on the site was over 14 minutes, the longest of any of the top 20 websites.

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