CARY, N.C. -

Dealers looking to shore up their supply of used cars by purchasing from consumers may be in luck.

Citing internal data from 2021, Cars.com says 41% of its in-market audience aims to sell their vehicle prior to making a purchase.  

This means “new opportunities for dealers to acquire cars directly from consumers,” Cars.com said in a news release.

What’s more, the 2022 State of the American Driver report from car ownership app Jerry found that 58% of drivers said they would consider selling their vehicle this year. Last year, 14% of drivers actually did so.

And among those consumers who ended up selling their ride, close to a third (31%) traded it in to a dealership, the study found. While not a majority, that group was larger than any sales avenue in the study.

Nineteen percent of consumers selling their vehicles sold directly to another consumer, 17% utilized online vehicle platforms, 11% used Facebook Marketplace, 10% turned to Craigslist, 6% turned to eBay Motors and 6% used other methods, the Jerry data shows.

In its Market Insights report from last week, Black Book noted improvement in the number of used retail listings by dealers to start the year, projecting a rosier supply picture ahead for trade-ins.

“With some forecasted improvements on the semiconductor front, the number of listings is expected to continue increasing as we go into the spring market with more trade-ins and rental returns,” the company said in the report.

In the same report, Black Book mentioned that independent dealers are turning more to consumer cars these days, given scarce off-lease supply in auction lanes.

“Auction lanes almost seem to be a secondary source for inventory for franchise and independent dealers as quality lease returns continue to be scarce,” Black Book said. “Franchise dealers are having more luck cherry-picking upstream while independents spend more advertising dollars to purchase direct from consumer.”

Such moves are part of the out-of-the-box acquisition strategies dealers are employing.

In an episode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast posted Monday, Black Book chief data science officer Alex Yurchenko said: “The (auction supply) picture's going to slowly change in 2022, but for now, the volume is not there that we've seen before COVID. As a result of that, dealers are getting more creative. They're expanding their acquisition channels. They're looking at dealer-to-dealer platforms. They're looking at different technology and platforms to acquire vehicles direct from consumers.”

And they’re not the only ones.

Online used-car retailers are also leaning in to consumer cars.

For example, Shift was set to host a “Car to Cash” pop-up event in the Los Angeles area in January to acquire cars from consumers. In its upcoming return to Super Bowl advertising, Vroom will turn its attention to the consumer experience of selling used cars.

 

Nick Zulovich contributed to this report.