Carwow comparison site acquires buying platform Wizzle

Car buying comparison leader, carwow has today (15 June) announced the acquisition of used car buying platform, Wizzle. Carwow connects more online car buyers with more dealers and OEMs than any other online marketplace and is the brand of choice for more than 12m users who want to research, configure and find their perfect new car online. Last year alone, £2.5bn of new cars were sold on the carwow platform and almost 80 per cent of buyers then had a car to sell.

The acquisition of Wizzle will help carwow users sell their current car as soon as they’ve configured their new car on carwow.

Wizzle is the brainchild of Sébastien Duval who first set about building an app to help car dealers appraise and value used cars that had been driven onto used car forecourts. He quickly figured out that he could streamline the process for both dealers and customers by moving the entire process online, providing customers with the ability to profile their car so that they could share it with prospective dealers who might want to buy it. Wizzle customers simply answer a set of questions about their car’s general condition and upload six to eight photos which dealer partners around the UK can access before deciding whether to make an offer to buy it.

Wizzle now has more than 2,000 dealers using its platform who are buying more than 1,500 cars per month. It’s quick and simple for dealers to review the condition of any of the vehicles on the platform and make an offer in real time.

Carwow plans to integrate the Wizzle used car selling service into its new car buying experience this week.  While carwow has had a ‘Sell Your Car’ feature live for a number of years – driving over a million valuations in the last 12 months – it has only been able to provide a single offer from a single provider. By leveraging Wizzle’s technology platform, carwow will be able to provide multiple offers to customers and prioritise offering cars to dealer partners directly.

With more than 130 million views a month across YouTube, carwow.co.uk and the carwow app,  carwow can use its massive reach to provide dealer partners with access to a huge volume of high quality used cars that they can buy directly.

James Hind, carwow CEO said: “Our partners have told us that they want better direct access to high quality used car inventory and this acquisition will allow us to do just that quickly. Wizzle is already powering over 1,500 vehicle sales per month, which we’re aiming to grow exponentially by integrating the service into the main carwow platform. We’re super excited about the Wizzle team joining the carwow family and look forward to rolling the service out in the UK and then Germany and Spain.”

Sébastien Duval, CEO of Wizzle said: “With carwow’s reach, scale and the expertise of its 245 person team, we’re in pole position to build the biggest used car aggregator in the market, providing dealers with easier access to more in-brand, local and quality cars.

“I can’t wait to combine our class-leading technology with the immense reach that carwow have in the UK and in Germany and Spain. Our companies are two sides of the same coin, with the shared vision to deliver trust, transparency and high quality services that gives dealers an advantage in the digital world.”