Pendragon signs online deal

Having fallen behind its competitors the car listings service is aiming to make up ground through bolstering its online offering. “We are pushing to be the real number two behind Auto Trader,” said Exchange Enterprises' marketing manager David Owen. Owen claimed Exchange & Mart was already the second most popular site for car buyers.

Although he admitted that Ebay generated “huge traffic”, he said much of that came from visitors to Ebay's general site clicking onto the motoring portal. “As a specified car site we are the number two,” he said. Owen said there were 100,000 used cars posted on the Exchange & Mart website at any one time. The site pulls in half a million unique users a month compared to 5 million on Auto Trader. “It's the right amount of cars for us,” said Owen, “you'll always find the right car on Exchange & Mart.”

With the site now well established following its relaunch in August 2006, Owen said: “There is now another place for motor traders to advertise.” Apart from Pendragon, he said other major dealer groups such as Listers, Hartwells and Perrys also advertised on Exchange & Mart although not on an exclusive basis. Exchange & Mart, which has a 150-year history, was the market leader as a listings magazine until it was knocked off its perch in the 1990s by the dawn of the internet. Owen said: “The message is we are back - the web is the way forward for us. It's about helping dealers enhance their web presence through us.”