Used-Car Platform Driverama Gears Up For Launch

Online sales of used cars are picking up speed. To take advantage of that momentum, a Europe-based site, Driverama, is being readied for takeoff half a year earlier than expected.

Bloomberg reports that the planned online used-car website, an arm of Prague-based Aures Holdings, will launch first in Germany. It will feature more than 5,000 of its own inspected cars, said Aures Founder Anthony Denny. He sees Driverama expanding to 11 countries by 2025, as consumers adopt more eCommerce.

“We’re moving six months ahead of schedule,” Denny said, pointing to the surge in eCommerce recent market activity. This includes the $7 billion merger deal that has British used car platform Cazoo combining with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Ajax I. Also: Auto1 Group SE raised $2.1 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in February.

Denny said he’d been surprised by some of the valuations and wanted to get in on the action before investors’ zeal for the sector cooled off.

In the U.S., online used-car dealer Vroom reported fourth-quarter results that showed a growth surge. The company said that the number of vehicles sold in the quarter totaled 11,022, up 74 percent compared to the same quarter the previous year. For the fiscal year, the total number of vehicles sold was up 82 percent, to 34,488.

The Vroom website says the company offers an experience that includes “no haggling (and) no hassles.” It said that its cars have “multiple inspections” and all come with a report on a vehicle’s history.

“Broadly speaking, the used car market is robust, and it’s getting more robust” even as car manufacturing has stalled, Vroom CEO Paul Hennessy told PYMNTS. He said that the connected economy is set to disrupt the way people buy and sell cars.

Data and devices are the fuel of the connected economy, he added.

Overall, the car-buying craze is on. Consumers are snapping up new vehicles at pre-pandemic levels.

Auto sales were up 8 percent in the first quarter of 2021, as vaccination programs built up speed and consumer confidence in a return to normal rose.