Toyota Motor Cooptation, the Japanese car manufacturer is in plans to start the auctions of used cars. The vendor has been following this practice globally. Lately, the company missed its sales targets to a great extent in its two decade presence in India. Now, in order to expand its business in the country, this auctioning practice is to be introduced in India.
Regarding this, a senior Toyota executive stated that Toyota’s mission is to improve the Indian used car industry making it more reliable as well as transparent to the customers. With this mission, the Toyota Auction Mart will be launched in Bengaluru in September 2015. As per this system, the used cars from all brands will be thoroughly inspected by the professionals trained by the manufacturer. After inspection, the vehicles will be certified for the auction process.
In the other countries, Toyota vehicles will be auctioned via its companies including Chubu Auto Auctions and Toyota Auto Auction in Japan. In Taiwan, Hotai Auto Auction will do the same.
This new step of launching Toyota Auction Mart is seen as a new way to restore the confidence among customers on Toyota. With the sluggish sales of the new cars for over a couple of years, the used car market is becoming a welcome source with chances of increased business and an all new revenue generator for the car manufacturers.
Like the other manufacturers, Toyota also has its used car business that operates under Toyota UTrust. As per the company insiders, there is a dedicated unit to look after the auctioning system. Well, Toyota Kirloskar Motors that is the joint venture in India has already established an auction unit in Bidadi, a town on the Bengaluru to Mysuru highway.
As per the executive, the engineers of the company will rate the used cars on around 203 parameters as part of Toyota Auction Mart. This will be done by assessing the price and worth of the cars. This is very different from the existing practice followed by the dealers of used cars. The dealers sell the used cars in a highly unprofessional way.
Going by the industry experts, the used car business is almost 1.3 times larger than the sales of new cars that account to 2.5 million units per year. Furthermore, the used car business is growing at a rapid rate. Eventually, there is a huge potential for the organized players such as Toyota to contribute to the growth of the same.
