Data analysis from Intelligent Motoring, the parent company of MotorEasy, Motokiki and Warranty Assist, reveals the cost of vehicle repairs has risen on average by 33 per cent January-June 2022, compared to the same period in 2021.
No-one envisioned just how many challenges the tyre market would have to face this year. As has generally been the case, the trade rose to the occasion by repeatedly pivoting to adjust to mid-pandemic customer demands and government requirements. At the bricks and mortar end of the business this has meant ensuring premises are Covid-secure and there are continuing supplies of PPE – as well as maintaining high standards of tyre service and supply. However, this year has also significantly closed the gap between exclusively conventional bricks and mortar tyre retail businesses and pure play tyre e-tailers, with consumers increasingly planning tyre purchases and looking for contactless servicing options online.
Motoring services website, MotorEasy has acquired tyre price comparison site Motokiki. The acquisition represents the latest addition to MotorEasy’s portfolio of motoring products, which includes insurances, fixed-price repairs, MOTs and servicing, and car leasing. Motokiki was launched in quarter four of 2018, backed by £3 million of equity investment from Maven Capital Partners and the Development Bank of Wales. It entered administration just under a year later, following the resignation of co-founder and CEO Debra Williams. MotorEasy’s announcement claims that Motokiki is “the only independent tyre comparison website”, but a recent Tyrepress survey of the UK market found eight current tyre comparison websites with a variety of approaches, including the independent user review site TyreReviews.co.uk, and Tyrepress’s sister site WhatTyre.com, which uses professional tyre reviews and experienced editors to rank tyres with its Tyrescore system.
Lydia Limited, the company behind tyre price comparison site Motokiki, called in the administrators on 24 October 2019. Simon Girling and Chris Marsden of BDO LLP were appointed Joint Administrators on the same day. Tyres & Accessories understands that the administrators are seeking to sell the technology assets of the company and is seeking offers before a Friday 15 November 2019 deadline.
A new online tyre price comparison service has launched, aiming to provide UK motorists with an online tool to choose their tyres quickly and easily, and bringing together products from a wide variety of retail businesses. Motokiki’s comparison engine is designed to offer an impartial whole of market price comparison of tyres from a broad range of suppliers, as well as tyre label result comparison, and the location in which they can be fitted. The company initially comprises 20 staff in offices a short walk from Port Talbot railway station, working on the technical development and marketing of the website, with other aspects of the business outsourced to teams around the country, such as its London-based communications agency, FWD Consulting. Tyres & Accessories travelled to south Wales in late November to attend the launch, with Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”) and the Development Bank of Wales, which have collectively made an equity investment of £3 million in the company, also represented.
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