Buy & price to the live market
Buy and price with confidence by integrating a real-time view of market valuations.
Having the visibility to move with the market daily is key to protecting and maximising margin on every sale.
Price to the live market with Auto Trader Valuations
As the number one automotive marketplace, we observe over 1.3 million cars and vans, 116,000 vehicle updates, 39,000 vehicles added or removed and 20,500 price changes daily.1 This includes vehicles listed on Auto Trader, over 3,000 retailer websites, retailer forecourts, OEM, fleet and leasing websites, and major auction houses across the UK.1 This depth of data enables us to monitor live pricing with the most robust view of the market.
Auto Trader Valuations provide an unrivalled perspective of the live retail market, allowing retailers to buy and price with confidence without the need to reference multiple different systems.
Buy and price with confidence by integrating a real-time view of market valuations.
Having the visibility to move with the market daily is key to protecting and maximising margin on every sale.
Have confidence that you're pricing the vehicle correctly based on spec and to the live market. Our valuations are underpinned by accurate and granular vehicle data, including OEM-derived VIN Spec which tells you exactly which optional extras the vehicle left the factory with.
Removing complexities of using multiple systems saves time and ensures consistency.
Building our Valuations into your existing systems makes them more accessible, to make faster decisions when buying and pricing.
Nobody else in the market can track the live market as accurately with our unique combination of consumer, retailer and transactional insights observed daily.
Setting a selling price to the live market, calculating what you can expect to pay in the wholesale market, or making a fair offer to a consumer for their part exchange can be time consuming. Our valuations make each of these tasks quicker and easier, removing the need to scroll through classified sites and pricing guides.
The Auto Trader Retail Valuation is a live view of what a retailer could expect to sell a vehicle for to a consumer.
Calculated from advertised retail prices of similar vehicles available for sale over the last 28 days.
The Trade Valuation informs a retailer of what they could expect to buy or sell a vehicle for in the wholesale market.
Calculated by comparing actual trade transaction prices of similar vehicles to live retail prices over the last 28 days.
The Auto Trader Part-Exchange Valuation is a guide of what a retailer might expect to offer a consumer to trade-in their vehicle.
Calculated to track below our retail valuation to ensure a retailer can retain enough margin.
Retailers have told us that when sourcing stock, 3 out of every 4 dealers now trust the Auto Trader Retailer Valuation above all other valuation options.
85% of those who do use our Retail Valuation rate it highly in their decision making saying it's important or extremely important. This is compared to the nearest rival, well known trade valuation, with 62% of retailers ranking it important or extremely important.2
With the support of manufacturer partners, we're expanding our library of more advanced vehicle data that is derived from the build specification of vehicles. This data is more accurate than using the standard specification for a vehicle derivative and takes into account optional extras. The enhancement will ensure retailer partners can maximise profit opportunity with automatically selected build specification when valuing vehicles.
More on VIN Spec dataWhere VIN Spec data isn't available, retailers inaccurately describe a vehicle 46% of the time and undervalue the vehicle by £361 on average where value adding specification is missed.1
Unlike some other data providers, our valuations are a data-driven reflection of the live retail market. No opinion or bias, we simply use the scale of our pricing observations to replay current market pricing to help you move with the market.
Factors that impact our valuations:
Different buyers have different opinions on what a good value vehicle is, that’s why our valuations are focused solely on the factors that impact the price of a vehicle.
Factors that don't impact our valuations:
Factors which are personal to each buyer and don't directly impact price are excluded. You can promote these elements elsewhere on your adverts.
Buyers look to trusted sources and brands when making a big ticket purchase and trusting the price of a vehicle is no different. Our valuations are powered by our view of market pricing, which we use to drive our price indicator tool. Trusted by buyers, they also help retailers with price transparency and build consumer confidence to commit to a purchase decision.
When sourcing vehicles from trade, retailers have traditionally used trade valuations to influence a purchase decision. However, historic auction prices do nothing to help you retail vehicles profitably, with this approach ignoring the live fluctuations of a fast-moving retail market and can often lead to margin risk for retailers.
Smart retailers know that if you're selling on the retail market, you should base your buying decisions on what that vehicle currently commands on the retail market, taking supply and demand into account and working retail-back to inform your buy price.
Winner of the Car Dealer Valuations Provider of the Year award for two years running.
Learning resources
Learn how to use our data and tools to price smarter
At any given time, retailers are missing out on £91 million in profit3 by underpricing their stock. That's because this stock isn't priced to the live retail market. Effectively throwing away profit. Our data and tools make it easy to prevent that. Watch a masterclass today to master your pricing.
1 Auto Trader Internal data 2 Google Analytics data, average number of cross-platform visits a month in 2021 3 Auto Trader internal analysis of the advertised price vs the retail valuation.