DRIVE, the consumer website owned by Nine Entertainment Co, has moved to differentiate itself in the online auto space by only listing cars for sale by car dealers and it is leaving private car classifieds to others in the auto consumer space.

Drive has found itself with an exclusive audience of 1.3 million car buyers (out of a total of 2.5 to three million) who do not visit any other auto website. 

Management sees this as an opportunity to capitalise on that unique audience by offering buyers a service, called NUSED cars, of listing high quality popular new and used cars that are still warranted by the car maker and meet certain conditions.

Drive CEO, Simon Halfhide

Cars for sale by dealers, for example, must have remaining OEM warranty to qualify for being put in front of Drive’s readers as NUSED cars. To qualify, NUSED cars will also have limits on the kilometres travelled that will vary by brand to qualify. 

Listed cars must also be “ready for immediate sale today” so that buyers can complete their purchase quickly; which is something Drive readers have asked for.

As a means of reinforcing the importance of factory warranty to the peace-of-mind of buyers, a key new feature of Drive vehicle listings is that the details of each vehicle now show the amount of warranty left to run on that car.

Drive management told GoAutoNews Premium that the website will launch the concept of “NUSED” cars in December. The new sub-brand tags new cars available now, demos and used cars with factory warranty remaining. A trademark application is pending. 

Drive CEO, Simon Halfhide told GoAutoNews Premium: “We all know that not everyone can afford a brand new car, but it’s a brand new car to them whether it be brand new or a few years old.”

In a series of briefings with dealers in the coming days, Drive will tell them: “NUSED is all about quality vehicles. The family car needs to be reliable and is not going to break down. It’s going to be safe, but they can’t necessarily afford to buy a new car. So it’s a quality vehicle sold by quality dealers, all covered by manufacturers warranty and available to buy today.”

This is a major reason why Drive will not list private cars. The quality of the vehicles cannot be guaranteed and there is no comeback on dodgy private sellers; unlike the consumer guarantees that come with buying through dealers.

Lee Mason, Drive head of marketplace, said research showed that dealers liked the quality environment created by Drive. 

“They really didn’t like the fact that their cars were competing against private sellers’ vehicles. Clearly, private sellers don’t have the same overheads of a franchise dealer.

“A lot of the dealers we spoke to didn’t want their $100,000 Audis placed against a $5,000, 2002 private seller Holden. They just felt it wasn’t befitting of their brands, and they just wanted to be in more of a differentiated space. So that has been part of our thinking in coming up with this brand new concept.”

Drive is a brand that was originally a masthead for the motoring sections of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age classified print sections. These days it encompasses motoring coverage across print, online, radio and broadcast TV as well as on-demand television with TV, for example, driving a 37 per cent increase in brand awareness on recent data.

Drive journalists on radio answering questions about cars also reinforces the brand.

Drive CEO, Simon Halfhide told GoAutoNews Premium that since it absorbed CarAdvice into Drive some years ago the company has “spent many millions of dollars building a new online presence”.  

“It would have been about a million and a half users back then and it’s now sitting somewhere between two and a half and three million depending on seasonality in each month. 

“But what’s really interesting, and what has been really compelling for the dealer market is the exclusive audience we attract. We have 1.3 million people on average each month who are exclusively on Drive and not on any other platform (based on Ipsos research).

Drive head of marketplace, Lee Mason

“What dealers are really loving with our platform is that we are delivering unique incremental sales opportunities for their businesses. We did a recent case study with a dealer group in Sydney, in September in which 97 per cent of our leads were exclusively Drive leads with only a three per cent crossover.”

Drive currently lists 30,000 new and used cars and charges $50 a lead with no other fees which Drive says represents a cost-effective model that is 50 per cent better value that other platforms.

“With the market tightening a little bit, profitability has come off. Dealers are more conscious of their cost base. So what is resonating is that exclusive audience piece, because now we’re actually delivering incremental sales to their dealership, and we’re doing that at a cost of sale that is half that of other players,” Mr Halfhide said.

“We simplified our model when we spoke to dealers last year. They wanted simplicity in their pricing models. They didn’t want any scale based on vehicle pricing. So for us, we went with a simple model. All lead types, whether it be new car leads, used car leads or sell my car leads are $50 per lead, and that’s been resonating really well.” 

Drive also claims that its readers are quicker to buy than buyers coming into dealerships from other sites. Days to sell from Drive leads are 44 (compared to between 50 and 55 days on other sites); an improvement of 150 per cent.

A recent initiative, integrating advertising with editorial coverage of specific models has seen an increase in lead volumes of 67 per cent and conversion of leads up by 94 per cent. 

“In 2024 we are delivering 6.3 times more leads into the dealerships than we did at the same time last year. So not only are we growing traffic and growing listings and leads, but the leads are converting at the dealership.” 

Mr Mason said that Drive has been focusing on recruiting the dealer groups with the best reputation for customer service in the market. “We have service level agreement with our partners in terms of their response times and other minimum standards so that the experience through our platform is at a high level and customers are getting exactly what they’re after.”

“We really want to work with the best dealers in the market. They are the best dealers for a reason. They are really well run and they are really the businesses we want to align with,” Mr Mason said.

Drive director of marketing, Leo McEwen

Leo McEwan, Drive director of marketing, said that the company’s latest annual consumer study has confirmed Drive is “on the right track” with the NUSED online listings “in terms of looking for that premium new or used car sort of buyer.

“We could see that 77 per cent of Drive visitors had bought their current car from a dealer and they do have a higher view of the role the dealer plays in buying a car. 

“They value the fact that dealers provide the warranties, the service contracts and that sort of peace-of-mind.

“Our audience does skew higher towards new car intenders, which makes a lot of sense based on a lot of the content, so it also means that they do have slightly bigger budgets on average for both new or used car purchase versus the average population. We are a very ‘dealer popular’ environment for consumers,” she said.

Among a raft of changes being introduced to the site, Drive has adopted a price rating system so that buyers can see where the asking price sits in the market. The range covers below market price, average market price and higher than market price. A higher than average asking price could indicate a low mileage car or a vehicle packed with additional features.

Mr Halfhide said that Drive was still a work-in-progress. “We are in this for the long term. We’re not here to make a quick dollar. We’re here to build up a scaled, sustainable business, and we’re here to do what we think is right for the market. 

“So we’re not trying to copy anyone. We are trying to be innovative, to provide solutions, both for consumers and dealers, to help solve some of their problems. So we were not a me-too and we are quite considered in how we go about these things. But, you know, so far, we’re doing a reasonable job, and we’re pretty pleased with some of the outcomes we have achieved.”