Apart from lower prices for better cars, trade-ins also offer a way to gain funds
Prague, 12 November – Czech drivers are increasingly taking the option of bringing their old car to a used car dealership and leaving soon afterwards in a completely different vehicle. Trade-ins are often preferred for the fact that customers can get up to 20% more for their old car than under a normal sale. They usually take advantage of a trade-in to buy a newer or more luxurious model and use the proceeds from the sale of their current car to make the down payment or to settle part of the purchase price. However, almost a third of customers take advantage of a trade-in to exchange their current car for an older car: the difference in price is them paid to them in cash which they can then use as they wish.
Trade-ins are an ever more popular option for paying some or all of the price of a newly purchased car by selling the customer’s older car. Of the AAA AUTO customers opting for a trade-in, 70 percent use the service in this way. “When trading in an older car to buy a new one, they may get up to 20% more on the price of their old car. They often don’t need any additional funds for a down payment and go home in another car within an hour,” reports AAA AUTO’s Operations Director and Purchasing Director Petr Vaněček, confirming the benefits of a trade-in. “The amount of the discount on the new car when trading in an old one is an individual matter, however, and depends on the type of financing,” he points out.
Trade-ins mean that our customers can afford to buy newer, safer cars with lower mileage or better equipment.“But the fact that when they sell their older car directly, they would have to give the buyer a mandatory guarantee of its technical condition for at least twelve months also plays a significant role. When buying a newer car through a trade-in they don’t have these concerns, the guarantee obligation is transferred to us in full,” added Petr Vaněček.
The remaining 30% of customers buying cars with a trade-in, however, use this option to address their financial difficulties. “They sell a more luxurious car and buy a cheaper car from us. We pay them the difference in price immediately in cash, which can be a welcome form of help for the resolution of financial problems,” says Petr Vaněček.
“Roughly one in four customers who are buying a car from us trade in their current car. The advantage of this exchange of cars is that we buy the car on a trade basis whatever its age or condition – this is a very welcome service for customers who might normally have a lot of problems selling older cars. The cars traded in are then mainly sold to people interested in spare parts via our cut-price car brand Auto Diskont,” reports the Operations Director of AAA AUTO in conclusion.
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The AAA AUTO group has been on the market for 23 years. It operates a network of 39 branches in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary. During its existence, it has served over 1.6 million customers. The group’s audited revenue in 2014 was 437 million Euros. In the same year, it sold 63,613 cars. Since 2012, the company has been selling cars under the re-launched Mototechna brand, where concentrates its sale of “nearly new” cars in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In April 2014, Mototechna started selling luxury cars under the new Mototechna Premium segment. In an Ogilvy & Mather study from the autumn of 2013, the AAA AUTO brand was seen as one of the ten best Czech brands post November 1989. At the end of 2014, the AAA AUTO group was taken over by the Polish investment fund Abris Capital Partners. This autumn, several companies from the AAA AUTO group merged into a single company with the new name AAA Auto International, which is now the main entity trading used cars in the Czech Republic and which has assumed all of the liabilities of AAA AUTO with regard to customers and business partners.
