WeBuyCars (WBC) buys and sells between 12,000 and 13,000 vehicles every month across its expansive dealer network, said WBC chief marketing officer Rikus Blomerus, equating to an average of 417 units per day.
The company previously confirmed that the cars at its sites have an average price of approximately R140,000, which works out to a monthly turnover of between R1.68-1.82 billion.
How WeBuyCars works
WBC acquires all of its listings in one of three ways.
One of the main methods is when an owner brings the vehicle to a WBC dealer for an assessment and if they’re happy, they sign a contract and sell it right then and there.
Another popular option is to submit the vehicle on the company’s website for an offer, which will see one of the WBC buyers travel to the seller’s location to peruse the car and if everything is in order, buy it and deliver it back to the closest showroom.
The third and newest point of contact is a series of “buying pods” that are generally installed further away from a major dealer, where motorists can take their vehicles to be evaluated and purchased.
Every car, bakkie, motorbike, boat, trailer, or even construction equipment taken into the WBC catalogue follows an identical procedure before it’s put on sale again.
First, they are delivered to a wash bay to get thoroughly cleaned before being taken to a 360-degree photo booth that takes interior and exterior images at various angles for uploading the vehicle to the online database.
Once this is complete, every unit is taken to the in-house Dekra facility where it is assessed for technical faults.
Dekra operates independently of WBC and provides an in-depth report covering a vehicle’s interior and exterior condition, as well as the state of the underpinnings like the gearbox, engine, brakes, tyres, and undercarriage.
It is then awarded with either an A or B rating, the former indicating that it is in fairly good condition and the latter meaning work must be done to get it roadworthy.
After a car has received a Dekra inspection, it moves to the auction phase where dealers and the public can bid on the vehicle to take it home.
Around 22% of all the models are sold at auction, with the remainder taken to the showroom floor to be displayed to potential customers.
Here, the vehicles are grouped according to price and body type to simplify the shopping process for customers.
On average, a car spends between 24 and 25 days on the showroom floor before finding a new owner, said Blomerus
The WBC success story
Starting in 2001, only the two founders of WBC were taking care of business and all the buying and selling were handled by them.
The company had a small outpost in Pretoria East where it operated out of, and it took seven years until the number of employees grew to double digits (10).
By 2010, now 13 workers strong, WBC bought its first warehouse not far from its original location with space for around 100 cars, and six months thereafter, it bought a neighbouring piece of land to accommodate the rapid growth it was experiencing.
At the end of 2011, WBC now had a capacity for 700 sets of wheels on its premises and had to start thinking about going national.
The founders still did everything themselves at this point in time, but realised that there was a need to bring in more hands, and thus, the first management team and buyers were brought in to lighten the load.
This was described as a “turning point” by WBC founder Faan van der Walt.
By the time 2014 rolled around, WBC had a footprint all the way down in Cape Town by appointing its first buyer in the city, and not long thereafter, it had buyers in all the major towns across South Africa.
The next few years would hold exponential growth for the used-car retailer, opening its Cape Town branch in 2016, Durban and Midstream branches in 2017, a Joburg South and another Cape Town branch in 2018, and yet another Cape Town and one Port Elizabeth branch in 2019.
During this time, it also reached the milestone of hiring its 1,000th employee, and the owners sold a minority share of the business to Fledge Capital.
In July 2020, online auctions were launched to the public and WBC started including Dekra inspection reports in all its listings.
Not even six months later, Transaction Capital acquired a 49.9% stake in WBC to the tune of R1.84 billion, and in May 2021, it increased its share to 74.9%, leaving the remainder in the hands of the founding family.
WBC then saw an immense increase in demand when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and it rode the wave to record sales, reporting earnings of R406 million for the half-year ended 31 March 2022.
Today, WBC is an impressive 15 dealers strong with over 2,500 employees and 10,300 vehicle bays between them, making it one of South Africa’s most prominent auto retailers.
Keyword: How many cars WeBuyCars buy and sell per month