Industry’s ‘best-of-the-best’ celebrated at the 11th Auto Trader Retailer Awards

Award winners were described as ‘truly inspirational’ and ‘the best-of-the-best’ by Auto Trader sales director, Le Etta Pearce, who presented the awards alongside former Gadget Show presenter, Jason Bradbury and fellow sales director, Darren Moon.  

This year saw the most radical changes to the Awards since its launch in 2007. This included Auto Trader’s first ever performance league tables, as well as a mystery shopping process, which saw 1,000 of Auto Trader’s best performing retailers gradually whittled down to just two Customer Experience Award winners via three mystery shopping phases: email (1,000 customers), telephone (500 customers) and face-to-face (150 customers). 

Auto Trader Sales Director, Le Etta Pearce, said: “This year our winners were determined by our most comprehensive judging process to date, which not only featured a very prestigious judging panel of experts, but also the opinions of thousands of car buyers, an in-depth analysis of millions of data points from across our market place, and also our first ever mystery shopping process. So even to be shortlisted is a huge achievement.”

Winners of the 2018 Auto Trader Retailer Awards:

2018 marks another important chapter in the Awards. As one of the UK’s most widely recognised and trusted brands (c.90% of all UK car buyers know Auto Trader[1]) amongst consumers, to ensure the winner’s logos - which can be promoted on Auto Trader ads and in-dealership via point-of-sale assets - truly resonate with car buyers, the name of the Awards has changed. Previously called the Auto Trade Click Awards, the more identifiable Retailer Awards also reflects the evolving expectation of today’s car buyers. It’s not enough to rely on having a great digital forecourt or a strong in-store experience in isolation. To succeed in today’s challenging market, the best retailers must provide car buyers with a total retail experience – a blended journey between the online and the offline.

There were a record number of self-nomination entries this year, twice as many as 2017. The Business Initiative of the Year and Rising Star awards were judged by a panel of industry experts, including senior executives from some of the world’s best-known brands, including Google, uSwitch, Compare the Market, and global advertising agency, The Specialist Works. 

Le Etta continued: “To succeed in what is an increasingly challenging and competitive market, retailers need to convince today’s discerning car buyers that their brand is trustworthy and professional. As both the largest automotive marketplace and the most trusted, we’re in the unique position to help our customer do just that. Not only have we changed the name, but we’ve also invested heavily in promoting them to our 55 million monthly visits, as well as extensive advertising across London. We don’t want to just hand these amazing retailers a trophy, we want to help them sell more cars too.”      

2018’s top performers

The detailed methodology involved in determining this year’s Retailer of the Year Award winners, enabled Auto Trader to produce its first ever annual performance league tables, split between those retailers stocking 200 or more cars and those stocking fewer than 200. To calculate the table, Auto Trader’s data analysts assessed a variety of dealer review-based metrics (including the number of positive reviews left by customers, replies to both positive and negative reviews, consistency and tone), over 6,000 retailer website reviews, mystery shopping findings and millions of Auto Trader data points.

2018 performance league table:

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About Auto Trader

Auto Trader Group plc is the UK and Ireland’s largest digital automotive marketplace. Auto Trader sits at the heart of the UK’s vehicle buying process and its primary activity is to help vehicle retailers compete effectively on the marketplace in order to sell more vehicles, faster. Auto Trader listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is now a member of the FTSE 250 Index.

The marketplace brings together the largest and most engaged consumer audience. Auto Trader has over 88% prompted brand awareness and attracts an average of 55 million monthly cross platform visits a month, with circa 70% of visits coming through mobile devices.

The marketplace also has the largest pool of vehicle sellers (listing more than 470,000 cars each day). Over 80% of UK automotive retailers advertise on autotrader.co.uk.

For more information, please visit https://plc.autotrader.co.uk/

For more information, please contact:

Andrew Nankervis | Andrew.nankervis@autotrader.co.uk  

[1] Auto Trader brand tracker, Sept. 2017