“So customers are evaluating their cars?”
Consumers Pretty Good at Self-Evaluating Trade-Ins
Tuesday July 25, 2017
Four years ago, Juan Flores of Cox Automotive fielded a couple of skeptical questions from dealers at a meeting where he explained a then-new online tool that lets consumers calculate the value of their potential trade-in vehicles.
“So customers are evaluating their cars?” a dealer asked incredulously, wondering about the possibilities of the do-it-yourself efforts leading to overvaluations and imprecise condition reports.
Turns out, people who follow the guidelines are pretty accurate, Flores says today. He is the general manager of Autotrader’s Trade-In Marketplace, which oversees the online tool, now called Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer.
Cox, which owns both Autotrader and Kelley, guarantees customers will receive the calculated amount of a trade-in, provided they follow the process and come up with a reasonably accurate valuation of their current vehicle.