Dario Esposito

GUMTREE Cars has appointed Dario Esposito as senior key account manager as part of its strategy to build up dealership expertise and experience within the company’s sales team.

Mr Esposito has worked in the car industry for more than 10 years – most recently as national operations manager for Vmoto, the UK and Ireland’s leading distributor of electric motorbikes.

Mr Esposito will be joining the growing Gumtree Cars key accounts team as part of an expansion of Gumtree Cars’ services.

He will be responsible for continuing to grow the presence of Gumtree’s dedicated cars in the highly competitive auto market and will be partnering closely with national and local dealerships to ensure Gumtree Cars offers a simple, good value and highly-transparent route to customers.

Mr Esposito said in a statement that he was looking forward to contributing to the development and growth of Gumtree Cars “and ultimately achieving our goal of becoming the Australian market leader”.

“I was inspired by the cultural roots of the brand,” he said. “Gumtree has a place in the hearts of so many Australians and the launch of Gumtree Cars in 2017 was a significant step in taking poll position in the cars category.”

Jessica de Vries, national sales manager of Gumtree Cars, said the appointment of Mr Esposito was critical to the continued momentum of Gumtree Cars.

“We’re excited to welcome Dario to our team,” she said. “He brings a wealth of dealership-focused experience to our growing team. His hire is another step towards our goal of becoming the number 1 auto marketplace in Australia.

“We’ll achieve this by continuing our focus on driving quality leads from over 260,000 daily automotive visitors. There has never been a more important time to support our dealers and we have invested in having the very best people for this key accounts team.”

Gumtree Cars launched two years ago and has since maintained development of the platform for both consumers and dealers through partnership building. Mr Esposito said he was committed to improving the experience of its premium dealer partners.

“I’m confident that my front line experience in dealerships will serve me well in the understanding and delivery of what matters most to our customers,” he said.

Gumtree Cars is planning ongoing updates to its services including integrated car records reports, call tracking, a broader radius for top ads and unlimited photos for dealers on the premium package.  

Gumtree Cars has an average of 150,000 unique visits each day, with an average of more than 6000 new listings, and is the number one site for privately listed cars.

By John Mellor