Sales enquiries for both new and used cars have seen an increase during the last week as retail buyers appear to have gained a little more confidence and seem more willing to start to spend the money they have inadvertently saved during the current third lockdown period.
However, new car sales for the month are still looking to be at around 60% of normal levels with a considerable constraint on the supply of certain new car models making things harder still for the dealers to meet taxing OEM sales targets.
The used car market has also improved and despite reports of a lower volume of sales professionals available to handle enquiries due to a final round of furlough savings before the showrooms reopen, sales for the week were strong. Conversely, the volume of replacement stock to refill the forecourts were strained as conversion rates at the auctions rallied and on online sales figures from third party remarketing companies took a positive swing too.
Analysis shows used car sales in the last week improved by 40% over the previous period which is very good news, and sales also reportedly ran between 80% and 90% of usual levels for the used car teams.
From a retail pricing perspective, the market reflected a drop of 1.4% in the Average Retail Price down from £195 to £13478. At the same time, the Cazana Used Car Retail Price Index dipped marginally by -0.2%.
On a more positive note, the index is sitting 9.9 percentage points higher than it was in March 2020.
Not only did the volume of Battery Electric Vehicles sales increase, but the Average Retail Price of those sold cars also improved by a significant 11.3% and now rests at £31,519 per car.
