Almost anybody who has tried to sell an used car will realise that the process is a lengthy one, from finding out any pending challans to getting the paperwork from the bank and then the transfer. Often cars are sold without the requisite paperwork and former owners can get a sting in the tail years later if their old car is used to commit a crime or involved in an accident. And it is a similar issue for buyers. But top of mind both sellers and buyers are in a state of conflict about what is a fair price for a car and if a car has been properly evaluated for prior damage.
It was these problems that Vikram Chopra and Mehul Agarwal intended to solve when they established Cars24. “People feel that there is a lack of trust and transparency at both ends of buying and selling used cars”, Chopra who along with Agarwal was a co-founder at online furniture retailer FabFurnish which was sold to the Future Group last year. Their new venture cars24 aims to offer the best price for the car for sellers and unlike classifieds or other organised used-car dealers, the business says it is a ‘Consumer to Business’ venture.
“We do not resell the cars to consumers again, but sell them on further to used car dealers”, Chopra explains. This is because even these dealers often face a problem of getting a reliable source of used vehicles and Chopra says that instead of competing with organised used car dealerships Cars24 ‘complements’ them, “we try to ease the process at either end of the chain, so both the seller and the buyer get a transparent process.” And Cars24 does not depend on seasonality with car sales, instead they sell subscriptions at various grades to used car businesses. “A subscription based model is a far more secure business model”, he explains.
Cars24 is scaling up slowly but surely, with operations in 10 cities and have set up 15 centres in Delhi-NCR. While sellers can go to the Cars24 website to get an estimated price for their vehicle, they can then take their vehicle to any of these centres to get the car properly assessed. “We make the process easy for the seller to understand so they understand they are getting a fair value for their car.” With the used car market estimated to be twice the size of the new car market, Chopra believes that the opportunities for Cars24 to grow are manifold.