Martin Herbst

GUMTREE Australia has launched ‘Gumtree Cars’ in an effort to continue building its share of the online car sales market. The company currently has 170,000 new- and used-car listings on the site.

The ad platform’s new features include advanced search options on the landing page, a ‘request a callback’ option for buyers, and car specifications provided by Glass’s Information Services.

Gumtree Australia managing director, Martin Herbst, said that the launch of Gumtree Cars signals the segment’s level growth on the platform, which is already the second most prolific category based on the number of cars, vehicles and parts listings.

“Gumtree Cars is part of Gumtree’s most significant rebranding step this year, as the platform celebrates a decade of being Australia’s local marketplace.”

“We have already seen year-on-year growth in replies per listing and are looking to extend our cars offering past the one million unique visitors we measured on the site last year,” Mr Herbst said.

Gumtree Cars will still offer sellers their first car listing for free – whatever the selling price, and will now also have a new emphasis on empowering car dealerships to maximise their online reach through the launch of tailored car ad types and packages for dealers.

“This is an exciting time for Gumtree as we continue to build awareness around the premium products available on our site, particularly within the automotive category. We see this as an opportunity to build the customer experience in the quality of our services.”

Nielsen 2016 research data reported that the number of visitors to Gumtree’s Auto, Parts and Services category was almost 1.1 million, meaning that about 15 per cent of total visitors to the site each month are looking at vehicles, parts and related services.

Gumtree is already an active community marketplace. The site claims to be a top 20 digital destination with seven million unique visitors per month, and some two and a half million listings, of which 170,000 are said to be new and used cars.

The launch of Gumtree Cars comes as part of a wide-ranging upgrade to the site that includes improved search functionality and speed, enhanced photo attachment capability, increased payment choices and smart category redirects for certain keywords.

By Daniel Cotterill