Heycar, the platform for buying second-hand cars from dealerships

The second-hand car sector has not escaped the digitalization process of purchases either, being able to find them even on Wallapop. With the immensity of ads posted on multiple platforms, it is often difficult to discern between reliable ones and those that are not, at the risk of being victims of scams or manipulated odometers. Faced with this panorama, Heycar was born, an online platform where you can buy second-hand cars marketed by dealerships that guarantee that the vehicles have passed inspection and have a warranty, including only those that are less than eight years old and have driven a maximum of 150,000 kilometers, in addition to having semi-new and kilometer 0 cars.

Heycar was born in Germany in 2017. It did so at the hands of the Volkswagen group, which had detected among its dealerships the concern about not being able to position themselves well in the new digital reality. Two years later it expanded to the United Kingdom, adding Mercedes. It arrived in Spain at the end of 2020, after Seat, its main shareholder, identified the same problem that had been seen in Germany. With headquarters in Barcelona, chosen for the influence of the Martorell car manufacturer, the presence of startups and its international projection, the platform employs about thirty workers in its Spanish subsidiary, of which 24 are in the Catalan capital, and expects to expand the workforce during this year.

Since its arrival, the platform has added about 400 dealerships, through which it offers more than 24,000 cars from 42 different brands, with Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Mercedes being the ones that generate the most interest. By the end of the year, its general director, Fedor Artiles, indicates that they plan to consolidate a network of 500 dealerships and more than 35,000 used vehicles. Despite the current crisis context in the automotive industry, the executive is confident that Heycar will continue to grow in Spain throughout 2021. Even more so considering the economic uncertainty that the pandemic has brought, as well as the transformation that the sector is experiencing towards electrification, making it more worthwhile to buy a second-hand car than a completely new one while the situation is not clear.

According to Artiles, Heycar's operation is simple. Through various filters, which classify ads by brand, model, or price, the user finds the options that best suit their preferences. Once they have chosen a few models, the monthly payment is calculated, and financing options are provided, as well as their data being sent to the dealership that posted the ad. This is where the main difference from other platforms lies: dealerships do not pay to place an ad on Heycar and only have to do so when a user is interested in one of their models and obtains their data. Likewise, when this happens, dealerships receive support from the platform's sales team, who help them transform that interest into a purchase.