Our Austrian country manager Rene Buzek has been with Autorola for a while now; 18 years to be exact. For more than 20 years he has, with an education in auctioneering, been an expert on the European auction market, and started working with Autorola at the Danish office in 2005. Later he moved to Germany and then Austria to build up their market. Outside of the office Rene enjoys all kinds of sports. From hockey to golf, running and fitness, as much as time allows, Rene stays active, and follows along with other disciplines as well.
Now, here is what he has to say on Autorola and the Austrian market:
The Austrian new car market continues to grow with sales up 16.6% in the first six months of 2023 with SUVs by far the most popular car type. All sectors of the market are stable, a trend which has extended to the used market where the buying audience remains strong, fuelled by a growing GDP and reducing unemployment.
Strong used car demand has helped prices rise by 3.6% since January 2022, the fourth highest rise in Europe in July with Austria only one of three countries along with Turkey and France to see prices continuing to rise month-on-month.
BEV stocks continue to grow
The current Austrian used market is split 45%/35% between diesel and petrol but while the share of new BEVs continues to grow, there is one distinct trend that is developing.
The Market Days’ Supply (MDS) of used BEVs is 183 days, which means that sales are rising but not as fast as stock levels are growing, which is where the export opportunity for dealers is a real one.
High export ratio
The export ratio in Austria remains high. As vendors look to achieve the right prices for their vehicles, they generally extend their reach beyond the limited Austrian buyer audience. Autorola manages all the paperwork and logistics connected with moving a used vehicle from one country to another and currently around 25% of used cars end up in other European countries.
“We work with a range of leasing and bank partners all of which are switched onto the power of selling used cars online. We run timed weekly online sales on behalf of vendors but also hosts several closed sales for the likes of Kia, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and RCI Bank to offer used cars for sale directly to their franchised dealer network via our bespoke Branded Sites auction portal,” explained Rene.
With global new car supply restrictions still impacting new car volumes then the priority of manufacturers is to offer used stock to their dealers before they are sold in the open market.
Supporting dealers and OEMs
The interest in INDICATA’s used car pricing and insights platform continues to grow with many different customers using it for different purposes. It has been supporting dealers for the past two years as an alternative in real time to the more traditional valuations tools while several OEMs are using it to provide a helicopter view of their national dealer network’s used car activity.
They can view the impact of pricing tactics and KPIs across the franchise and how they compare against rival brands, whilst an overview of stock levels helps the manufacturer appreciate how the market is moving.
“For those utilising online and physical auctions INDICATA can also be used to benchmark auction results against the overall market which supports dealers in operating a live pricing policy that has been known to change 2-3 times per week in this recent fast-moving market.
24/7 asset transparency
“With banks and financial institutions welcoming full transparency at every stage of the vehicle asset management process, our Fleet Monitor workflow and management system has become very popular with multiple fleets and OEMs,” reinforced Rene.
One such customer is Kia Austria who has successfully used the system for more than a decade with many customers using it as a full-service solution from the capturing of the initial vehicle order and registration through to managing end of contract inspections and remarketing.
Guaranteeing the best possible lead times
Kia Austria commented that “It is a huge advantage to handle our cars in an automated workflow which secures our processes and guarantees the best possible lead times for every part of the vehicle management process.”
At the end of contracts customers can then utilise INDICATA’s pricing data to set a used car market reserve and then we use our Marketplace online remarketing platform to sell the vehicle. RCI Banque is also using Fleet Monitor as a full-service solution.
