since 1976
since 1976
In an effort to stimulate new car bookings by leveraging on its recently announced tie-up with E-bidding companies (EBC), national carmaker PROTON collaborated with Carsome for an event titled Trade-in Trade-Up Saturday. Taking place on 14 October at 32 Proton outlets running the company’s used car programme, 1,552 people attended the event where a remarkable 624 new bookings were placed with 320 customers opting to trade-in their current vehicles. Carsome also conducted 489 vehicle inspections on the day, far exceeding the initial target of 320 units set prior to the event.
“As our sales volume continues to grow, Proton needs to consider avenues to facilitate the taking-in, distribution and disposal of used cars to support new bookings. Our used car management division was formed to achieve these aims and by partnering with EBCs we are able to offer a more efficient and transparent process that eases the customer towards owning a new car.
“Additionally, we are also targeting a higher volume of replacement car sales, where a current Proton owner trades-in their vehicle for a new one. With more options for them to trade-up in the range, it is important for us to keep our current customers within the brand and one of the ways is to stabilise our used car values together with our partners,” said Roslan Abdullah, Chief Executve Officer, Proton Edar.
Transparency and offering fair value to customers was one of the points stressed by Carsome during the event. "By leveraging data from mileage, historical records, and physical vehicle inspections, we provided customers with competitive offers that reflect true market values. There was a lot of interest shown across all 32 locations during the event and Carsome is eager to continue building upon this partnership with Proton" said Eric Cheng, Co-founder, and CEO of Carsome.
For 2023, the used car management division has taken in over 4,500 units across its 32 outlets and is on track to set a new record by the end of the year. Looking forward to 2024, there are plans to expand the network to 60 outlets with a target of achieving at least 6,000 units with plans to possible run more trade-in events on a quarterly basis.
Buyers interested to search for a used car from a Proton dealer can view the company’s dedicated used car website http://used-cars.proton.com where they can view available stock and get an estimated market price for their own used car.
