AutoQuake, the company formed in 2005 and made famous by selling David Beckham’s convertible BMW, has rapidly grown into the UK’s foremost online vehicle “remarketing” company (I guess that means second hand car sales to you and I)
AutoQuake offers a safe and convenient way to sell your car. Basically you drop off your car at one of their drop off locations or have Autoquake come and pick it up from you. After that Autoquake does the rest for you. They clean, test drive and inspect the car, prepare a sophisticated listing, handle questions and settle with the buyer. In return, you receive a cheque in the post.
With £2 billion worth of vehicle sold in 2005 and 100% annual growth, eBay is proving to be the optimal marketplace for selling cars directly to consumers. Unsurprisingly, back in July, AutoQuake recieved a sizeable cheque of their own from Accel Partner’s Judy Gibbons, worth $6m (£3.2m).
“AutoQuake has taken an extremely creative and customer-centric approach to this market opportunity—which is very large,” said Judy Gibbons, an Accel partner. “With recent developments in Web 2.0 technologies, the high growth in online communities and the large advertising spend in the car industry, we feel there are many additional exciting avenues for the company to explore.”
In fact, AutoQuake is already the largest seller of cars on ebay and is looking to further increase their share of this lucrative car market. AutoQuake estimates the market for used cars in the U.K at about $2bn annually.
“Our new financing will allow us to expand nationally in the United Kingdom and develop AutoQuake into a recognized and trusted brand,” said Jeanette Moskovits, chief executive of AutoQuake.
“AutoQuake is the new way to buy cars. We allow people to buy cars conveniently from their own home using their computer. By cutting out the middle man we can offer these cars at very low prices and with our unrivalled listings consumers know exactly what they are buying. So far we have sold over 3,000 vehicles and our 99.8% positive eBay feedback speaks for itself,” said Jeanette Moskovits, AutoQuake founder and CEO.
[Note:] In the United States alone, 40 million used cars are sold every year, compared with about 17 million new cars.