The remarketing industry should pool its data to ensure that the pricing of used vehicles is much more accurate.

That’s the message from BCA sales director Mark Hankey, who suggests the industry could do more to ensure the accuracy of residuals.

“We’ve got to start to apply some science based upon accurate, historical data from all the available sources, all of the guides, all of the auction companies, all of the remarketing chains, anybody that is producing price point information,” Hankey told the Vehicle Remarketing Association’s (VRA) inaugural conference.

Sharing data would also help them to tackle the issue of leasing companies setting unrealistically high reserve prices by showing them real-time pricing information obtained from across the remarketing sector.
Realistic pricing would, in turn, increase the proportion of first-time conversions at auction.

VRA director Rob Barr, from Manheim, said data pooling was one of several issues the new association would look at over the next 12 months.

“That’s not to say that the VRA wants to become a price publisher, because that’s not want it wants to do,” added Barr. “However, there’s a bunch of data in all our camps that we’ve got and we’re beginning to start to share.”

Mike Pearce, operations director at AutoLogic, believes that level of collaborative working will be challenging.

“The question will be whether people trust other organisations to share the data,” he said.

As well as looking at data sharing, the VRA told delegates it was still in talks with the BVRLA to simplify its ‘fair wear and tear’ guide.

The VRA, which was formed in 2010, also announced it would be producing a best practice handbook.
However, a great deal of the association’s work will be based around launching a remarketing training programme by the end of the year.

“The one body that can create that course and deliver it has to be the VRA,” said Barr.