Approved used cars on the up
The Sunday Times (11th April) ran a feature on the increase in popularity of approved used cars from franchised car dealers, extending the benefits of buying a new car (e.g. warranties) to nearly new/ used vehicles.
I thought I'd test this theory by using the Google Insights for Search tool. Looking at search queries on Google you can see the rate of growth for official approved used car providers (Ferrari & Land Rover using the examples from the Sunday Times article). As you can see by the results both of these are benefiting from rapid growth and increasing at a much faster pace than the automotive category as a whole. Interestingly searches for used car are actually down by around 20% from their peak in early 2008.
The growth in approved used cars represents a significant opportunity for franchised dealers and for overall used car residual values.
