Used Car eCommerce Platform Plans Marketplace to List Others’ Cars Too

Automotive eCommerce platform Shift has announced an acquisition that will accelerate its ability to build a digital marketplace that will enable dealers and independent sellers to list their used cars alongside Shift’s owned inventory.

Shift announced Tuesday (March 15) that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire certain assets of Fair Technologies, including its dealer-listing marketplace technology and team.

“Fair’s technology, team and deeply established dealer relationships will allow Shift to accelerate its vision of becoming the destination marketplace for car ownership,” Shift said in a letter to shareholders released March 15.

Offering Access to a Greater Assortment of Cars 

The online marketplace platform developed by Fair enables dealers to participate in eCommerce by managing transactions via a proprietary digital onboarding platform and then schedule a delivery of the vehicle to the customer’s home.

Shift executives said the acquisition will enable Shift to offer customers access to a greater selection of vehicles, accelerate the company’s retail sales growth, and leverage its marketing and brand investments. Because the marketplace will have more inventory, conversion and customer satisfaction should improve.

“At Shift, we’ve long envisioned building a digital marketplace where both dealers and independent sellers can list their cars alongside Shift’s owned inventory, offering customers access to a greater assortment of owned and third-party vehicles, with all the transactions fulfilled through Shift’s proprietary logistics network,” Shift Co-founder and Co-CEO George Arison said March 15 during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Arison said during the call that it would have taken Shift at least two years to build a marketplace itself. With this acquisition, Shift now plans to launch its dealer marketplace product at the end of the second quarter.

Handling Transactions and Fulfillment for Sellers 

For dealers, the new marketplace will not just list the vehicles they have for sale, but fully close the transaction, Arison said. That means dealers won’t have to devote a salesperson or a finance manager to do that transaction. And, because Shift delivers vehicles to the customer’s home, the marketplace will give the dealer access to new customers.

“We’re actually a full purchase transaction and then we offer fulfillment through our unique logistics network that we maintain ourselves in each region where we operate, which is obviously a huge differentiator from anybody else, because no one else has this kind of regional local network and logistics that we offer,” Arison said.

Looking ahead at other plans for 2022, Shift President Jeff Clementz said the company will continue to expand its market and deepen its existing footprint, invest in machine learning (ML)-driven pricing optimization, introduce new customer-empowered checkout flows and streamline its fulfillment and post-purchase experience.

“These platform improvements will be accelerated as we combine and integrate the great talent at Shift and Fair into a unified team,” Clementz said.