Here at Copart, our global buyer base, locations, and auctions continue to grow at pace, combining to provide you, our customers with reassurance that their vehicles are in the right place to achieve maximum returns despite a challenging market.
According to recent data from Solera cap hpi, average used car values dropped by 12.4% in 2023. A major contributing factor to this was, of course, the overly inflated market we saw between 2021 and 2022 due to the ‘post-Covid bounce’. Covid and supply chain issues disrupted the manufacturing of new cars, forcing buyers to the used market and setting prices soaring.
In the first five months of 2024, there has been a 1.2% uplift in terms of average used car values, which is encouraging news but still not reaching the previous highs.
The good news for our customers is that here at Copart we continue to buck the trend and during the same time period we have seen a 17% increase in selling prices at our auctions.
In fact, our buyer base is more active than ever before and that’s been a key factor behind our ability to maximise your returns, despite the slow rate of recovery across the wider UK automotive market.
We’ve seen…
- a 35% increase on new Members recruited this year compared to last
- a 16% growth in our global buyer base who buy from overseas
- Over 7 million bids placed at our auctions so far this year
- Over 5,000 of those bids placed from overseas
Because we have such an extensive global buyer base, we have the advantage of not being solely reliant on UK buyers, unlike our more localised competitors.
This means we can protect and mitigate our customers from the impact of UK automotive market fluctuations by utilising our buyer base, which currently spans 113 countries (76% of which are non-EU) , to maximise returns.
And, increasing the number of auctions we offer is key to ensuring that we continue to get more eyes on your vehicles and maximise your opportunity to achieve the best possible returns.
We recently launched a brand-new auction calendar, moving from one to two auctions a day, geographically split to provide separate north and south auctions in relation to our nationwide locations.
Brand new auction locations have been opened in Corby, East Kilbride, Gloucester and Skelmersdale, we’ve announced a new site coming soon in St Helens, and there’s much more in the pipeline to come.