I had lunch with the amiable boss of CD Auctions yesterday – Roger Woodward – who has plans for his online auction company to enter the small business arena with SME Direct.
Roger’s operation, which was established with his business partner Graham Johnstone in 1989, is based in Corby, Northamptonshire.
Not that its physical location matters: CD Auctions are online with detailed descriptions online of the cars for sale, along with excellent photographs.
Plus all the cars come with good provenance – mostly from leasing companies.
But, as Roger acknowledges, having auctioned 5000 vehicles in 2012, “just selling cars is not enough. We need to offer more services.” That’s why Roger is planning SME Direct, with a launch date of April.
“We’re aiming at the SME who has one, two, three, four cars – and offering them an online service with the sort of prices usually afforded to large fleets thanks to our economies of scale. And the cars are in ‘ready to retail’ condition.”
For those of you not used to auction jargon, that means as you would expect to find on a dealer forecourt: clean, well furbished, alloy wheel scuffs removed, and so on. Plus there will the security of a 12 month mechanical warranty, six months’ MOT and all tyres will have a minimum of 3mm tread.
“It’s an opportunity for SMEs to buy a used car at a very good price. It gives them a real good value alternative to buying new. The cars are fully safety checked and their provenance known. At a time when money is tight, this is a good opportunity to acquire a business car at a good value price,” explains Roger.
CD Auctions Group already runs an affinity scheme for BT friends and family which is run along similar lines with a ‘buy it now’ facility on the reserve price for all the cars coming up for auction.
However, Roger says he will add extra functionality with SME Direct, so that busy business owners and SMEs with a small fleet don’t have to keep checking the website, but can have a preference alert system set up. So, for example, when an Audi A6 Avant S line becomes available, an alert is sent.
Clearly, there’s some refining still to do to make SME Direct market ready.
But I’m sure SME Direct will be a big success for Roger and CD Auctions Group. It will provide the security, standards and service SMEs want at a price that’s affordable.
And you heard it first here in the business car manager blog!