Re: MotorExchange : A unique B2B & C2B Car Auction Website Q & A Session with MotorExchange
1. How many deals are successfully closed in a month? Your target 2 / 3 / 5 years from now? We have auctioned tens of thousands of vehicles across India in less than 12 months of operation. We recently raised our Series B round of financing and will be expanding the business in additional cities in the next 12 months.
2. How frequently are auctions held? Is there a fixed, recurring schedule? Several auctions are held in parallel on a daily basis on MotorExchange, usually from 10 AM onwards.
3. If a dealer is from the same city as a listed car, can he check it out in person? We don’t offer physical inspection as this would inconvenience our sellers.
4. Can dealers buy a single car, or do they have to purchase in bulk only? Once dealers have registered, they can purchase vehicles as per their requirement. This can be from a single vehicle to a large number of vehicles. There is no minimum quantity.
5. What is your revenue model (membership fees etc.)? Our main revenues derive from transaction success fees – only if a vehicle transaction is closed, do we get paid.
6. The sale of repossessed / fleet cars has traditionally been a largely unorganised, extremely fragmented segment. What are the top challenges faced by MotorExchange in this area? A key challenge has been for us to get sellers and buyers to completely understand and appreciate the workings and merits of these online auctions. However, once this happens, sellers’ response has been very good and we have seen many sellers move totally to the MotorExchange solution from their old processes.
7. Are the informal dealer cartels supportive or wary of you? Any stiff resistance faced? Dealers are in the business of buying and selling inventory and Motorexchange has become a key part of their business. Motorexchange provides the dealer with depth and breadth of inventory across India. Otherwise, the dealer would be limited to buying and selling inventory in his local geography. In addition, dealers get to bid on certified vehicles. They can access the certification report and images of the vehicle prior to the auction, so the true condition is known and they can bid with confidence. This saves the dealer a huge amount of time as he no longer has to physically inspect every vehicle.
8. Do you have a price guide that helps sellers in setting a price for their car? Can sellers set a reserve price? We will be launching a pricing tool in the future. However, even today we always advice our sellers on prices which they can expect for their auctions, as we have detailed knowledge of pricing prevalent in the market. But it is important to note that it is the seller’s decision whether he is ok with a certain price before he sells his car.
9. Tell us about your certification process (accuracy, logistics etc.). Is there any additional charge for the certification? We have a team of automotive engineers who inspect vehicles physically and prepare a Certification Report. The report covers 120+ certification points. Certification is a free service for our consumer sellers. Accuracy of certification is a key goal for us and the feedback from our buyers on our certifications has been excellent - buyers view the Certification Report as an accurate representation of the true vehicle condition.
10. What is the average inventory you expect to carry, at any given point in time, 2 / 3 / 5 years from now? Our vision is to be India’s largest used vehicle platform and our goal is to auction over 8,00,000 vehicles annually in 5 years.
11. Why will you not allow individuals to bid? Even those that are willing to go through your qualification process? If anything, more bidders will result in better prices for sellers? Any plans to allow individual bidders in the future? To become a buyer on MotorExchange, members need to pay a sign up fee and a deposit. We feel that this might make it hard to get individual buyers. In the future, we are considering making bidding accessible to individuals, either directly or through our member dealers.
12. How does the acquisition of CarTradeIndia fit into MotorExchange’s model? On MotorExchange, professional automotive buyers bid on vehicles sold by consumers, banks, leasing companies, etc. At the same time, consumers visit CarTradeIndia to sell their vehicles. Thus, MotorExchange uses CarTradeIndia to reach individual sellers. These sellers can then use MotorExchange to sell their cars through auction.
Last edited by GTO : 1st March 2011 at 14:44.
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