Data from Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor for August 2024 has revealed that the Land Rover Discovery Sport is once again the top profit-maker – a position it has held since March 2024 – with an average retail margin of £3,775. It also remains the fastest seller of the top 10 for a second consecutive month, selling in 27 days on average – not far from the days-to-sell record held by the Mazda CX-5 (selling in 23 days in May 2023).
Dealer Auction’s Marketplace Director, Kieran TeeBoon, commented: “The Land Rover Discovery Sport is a truly formidable offering, with consumers continuing to be drawn to the all-round experience offered by this luxury SUV. We’re seeing many pricing strategies being guided by these strong profit pockets, so the data for the Discovery Sport is definitely something for dealers to take note of.”
The Discovery Sport was followed by the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, with an average retail margin of £3,675, and the Volvo XC60 (£3,075). Overall, the top 10 was nearly a clean sweep for premium models, with two models apiece for Land Rover, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Not to be overlooked, however, is the Ford EcoSport, which first joined the chart in July 2024, and achieved a healthy average retail margin of £2,575 in August – enough to secure it ninth place.
Continuing the trend of luxury brands delivering strong returns, the top 10 brand chart was once again ‘top-heavy’ for premium marques. Land Rover drew the highest average profit (£3,800) once again, followed by BMW (£2,975) and Jaguar (£2,950).
Further down the chart, mainstream brand Volkswagen secured eighth place with its highest average margin to date: £2,300.
TeeBoon concluded: “It’s clear that dealers are using data and insights to explore all avenues of profit, reflected in the strong levels of engagement we’ve seen this month. As we enter Q4 – historically a challenging quarter for the industry – these unique opportunities for profit could make all the difference for vendors.”
Richard Walker, Director of Data and Insights at Auto Trader, commented: “We’re well into latter half of 2024 now, and despite plenty of distractions – from the election to the Olympics – the used car market has maintained its momentum. Demand is robust, but the market remains heavily nuanced, but as we continue to see in the Retail Margin Monitor, along with our own data, there are plenty of pockets of profit potential if you take a data-based approach.”
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About Dealer Auction
Dealer Auction is the UK’s leading digital remarketing platform. We give buyers and sellers more choice, better insight and greater margins. Dealer Auction is an independent company, created through a joint venture between Cox Automotive and Auto Trader. For more information, visit www.dealerauction.co.uk.
Launched in January 2022, Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor tracks the potential retail margin that can be achieved on vehicles bought via Dealer Auction’s open network. We track models meeting two key criteria: more than 20 units sold with a retail price of less than £25,000. We then compare the sold price for each model with the Auto Trader market average to reveal the potential margin. For the brand table, we compare models with more than 50 units sold. We crunch the numbers at the start of every new month.
Notes:
1The average ‘Auto Trader Retail Rating’ uses three key metrics to determine the consumer demand for the vehicle:
- Average days to sell – Calculated for the whole of the UK and then adjusted for the variations Auto Trader have observed locally in your area.
- Live market supply – Comparing the national supply level for the vehicle over the last seven days with the usual level of supply Auto Trader have seen in the market over the last six months.
- Live buyer demand – Analysing how many people are currently searching for the vehicle on Auto Trader, comparing consumer search behaviour over the last seven days against the level of interest over the last six months.
