From supercars to superminis – why data can help dealers buy better cars

We all know that data is very often the key to a successful car retailing operation, but with so many providers of such information present on the market, trying to find the right one isn’t an easy process.

Perhaps the answer is to go with a provider who has first-hand experience. Simon Hunt co-founded Brego in 2019 after wanting to buy smarter cars and not lose thousands of pounds in depreciation.

He admits that after feeling the pain of selling his beloved Jaguar XK and taking a hit on the depreciation, he set out to build a platform that could help people such as him and dealers make better buying decisions.

‘If I could tell how much a car was going to be worth in the future, then I could buy smarter, make smarter buying decisions and better cars,’ he told Car Dealer Live in the video at the top of the story.

‘I quickly realized that the motor trade was also very interested in having accurate valuations data, so Brego branched out from there.’

The Surrey-based business initially started out by providing data on supercars, based on evidence that such data was harder to come by for dealers. It has since widened its reach to the entire used car market, using the learnings it has in sourcing hard-to-find data for high-end cars to provide crucial data for more volume used cars.

Brego can provide a wide range of information – from valuations and VRM and VIN look-ups, to historical listings and total cost of ownership.

Its platform uses AI technology – which powers ChatGPT – to value new and used cars to within 10% accuracy over 85% of the time. Brego claims that in this regard it beats its competition by over 25%. Also, the platform doesn’t need to be integrated via API – dealers can log on and get started straight away.

Another area where Brego differs from other data providers is the approach it takes – it’s ‘retail down’, says Hunt.

‘Many data providers work with auction data and be a “trade up” style of valuation, which works well if you’re buying within the trade. However, we are a “retail down” approach where we are valuing cars from a consumer’s point of view.

‘Consumers are the ones who are assigning these values as they are buying, so a retail down approach makes sense.

‘Also, what makes us different is now we work with that data. So, rather than just looking at specific vehicle data, we open it up more. For example, if there is a brand new car that has been on sale for under a year, we’ve got 20 years’ worth of data which we can pull together against it.’

During the Car Dealer Live broadcast, Hunt gave some fascinating examples of how its data can be used for dealers to better understand the retail environment.

One such example is the comparison between the number of cars the average market is selling compared with online players Cazoo and Cinch. Click the video at the top of this post to see the findings.