Ian Plummer

…who has pioneered at Autotrader as Commercial Director since 2017, helping them grow and broaden their already leading position as a used car marketplace well beyond those bounds by being continually better for both trade and individual customers. It would be easy to become exploitative with the kind of marketplace dominance Autotrader enjoys, given the network effect of having the largest pools of buyers and sellers. But there’s a burning ambition to continually improve the offer. The used car price indicator is an example, showing a buyer whether the price a car’s being offered at is higher than average, fair, good, great or low. This only applies to cars sold by the trade and as you might imagine, it wasn’t immediately popular. But showing that lower prices that would be validated to give buyer confidence led to higher volumes of sales meant the bold move has been recognised as in both buyer and seller interests. Part of what makes this, and a great deal more, possible is the vast array of data collected and analysed to show where the market is going, given the reach and robustness. It’s supporting the move into selling new cars, using the easy and trusted experience in new ways, with the data guiding pricing and showing how behaviours are changing, for example around the growth in electric cars which are changing brand preferences dramatically. Clearly more to come on this particular journey.