New retail adverts surge as used car volumes recover, according to Cazana

Used car sales have recovered by 2.8% week-on-week from September 6, while new retail adverts have surged by 27.8%, according to the latest Weekly Pricing Insight from Cazana.

New car sales would normally dominate in September due to the plate-change.

However, this year has been slightly different as new car supply constraints have put retailers in a difficult position, being unable to meet the internal budget targets as well as those set by car manufacturers earlier in the year.

James Sharwin, Cazana head of insight and analytics, said: “It is not difficult to work out that the overall volume of new listings in the market has increased as sales have not balanced against the number of used cars added to the forecourts, although this is probably a good thing as used car stock levels were exceedingly low for some retailers.”

After the previous week’s drop of 11.8% in used car sales volumes, Sharwin said it is encouraging to see the market has gained a little more strength by nearly 3%.

From a retail pricing perspective, the Cazana Used Car Retail Price Index saw a nominal 0.2% increase lifting the price to £20,321.

This maintains the upward momentum but is lower than the market has become used to in recent weeks and months.

That said, the Cazana Used Car Retail Price Index is 16.5% higher than it was at the beginning of August 2020.

Sharwin said: “Looking at the raw average price of a used car and once more the gain has been very small at just 0.5% which recovers part of the -1.5% dip from the previous week and takes the average price of a used car to £15,311.

There has been a further drop in the volume of pre-reg profile cars being sold and Sharwin said this is due to the lack of new car stock in the market precluding the need to create pre-registered stock.

At the opposite end of the age span is the “old car” sector which enjoyed a pick up of 8.9% in used car sales over the previous week.

Sharwin added: “This perpetuates the volatility of this profile of cars.

“It is also interesting to see that the growth in used car sales has been predominantly focused on cars over five years old in the last week.”