Major car dealer to stop selling used motors & cut jobs in dramatic change to become ‘advertising marketplace’
A MAJOR car dealer is set to stop selling used motors and cut jobs back as the firm makes the change to an "advertising marketplace."
Cazoo began rolling back its presence last year during a challenging 12 months for the company.
The firm slashed its sales forecasts for 2023 from about 65,000 used cars sold in 2022 to just 40,000.
Now in a bombshell announcement, the firm has said it will no longer sell used motors. Jobs will go too.
A statement revealed the firm was "transitioning to a pure play automotive marketplace" and unwinding stock. The company will also make further job cuts.
"This will leverage our key advantages: our brand, which is recognisable and trusted nationwide, and our technology platform, which provides a market leading customer experience, and which will build on the demand from customers and UK dealers to transact online," Cazoo's statement said.
"The adoption of a marketplace model leverages Cazoo’s market-leading e-commerce platform and the more than £100 million investment in the Cazoo brand.
"The brand is now one of the top five most recognised UK automotive brands and has enabled Cazoo to sell close to 160,000 retail cars entirely online since 2019.
"The board believes Cazoo will bring fresh opportunities for dealers in the highly fragmented used car market, providing Britain’s car dealers with an online platform to offer their vehicles to the one million consumers on average who visit Cazoo’s website every month."
The firm's CEO Paul Whitehead said: "Transitioning Cazoo to a pure-play automotive marketplace business model leverages our key advantages: the nationally recognised and trusted Cazoo brand and the Cazoo ecommerce technology platform.
"We have built a data-driven business for buying and selling cars, and having sold close to 160,000 cars we have demonstrated that there is robust demand for online transactions in the automotive market.
"Our transition means we can now offer the UK’s 13,000 car dealers the chance to put their forecourt stock in front of the one million potential customers on average who visit the Cazoo website every month.
"The UK used car market represents a significant opportunity for Cazoo, with approximately seven million transactions annually, worth an estimated £100 billion."
Founded in 2018, the firm saw a rapid rise, sponsoring Aston Villa, the Welsh Rugby Union, a number of annual horse races in Epsom and Doncaster and cricket tournament The Hundred.
Cazoo also sponsored various events managed by the World Snooker Tour, the PGA European Tour and the Professional Darts Corporation.
Founder and former CEO Alex Chesterman left the troubled firm in December after a complicated debt restructure package.