Vroom will make cash offers to private sellers on eBay

Vroom, which operates a national online used-vehicle marketplace, will make cash offers to purchase vehicles from some private sellers on eBay under a pilot program, the companies said today.

The program gives Vroom another way to source vehicles for its operations, said Scott Chesrown, its chief revenue officer. It also gives eBay customers another option to sell their vehicles, said Tony Hoang, head of vehicles for eBay Motors.

The program starts in the third quarter, will run for a year and will be monitored to see how many consumers accept Vrooms’ offers.

At least in the beginning, the offers will be limited to eBay customers who, by the end of the listing period, either have not received an offer on their vehicle or have chosen not to accept an offer.

‘Another opportunity’

Hoang said those sellers will be alerted that they will be approached by Vroom.

“I’m excited about this pilot with Vroom. Part of my role here at eBay is to continue to enhance the seller’s experience,” said Hoang. “This provides eBay with another opportunity to invest in our sellers and offer a new, trusted option for them to have a successful transaction through our platform.”

Chesrown said Vroom will provide a benefit to eBay sellers by helping facilitate the sale if the seller chooses to accept the offer.

EBay has a global buyer base of 162 million active buyers, and its eBay Motors sites average 10 million unique visitors a month, eBay said. That vast customer base provides Vroom the opportunity to buy “hundreds” of vehicles per day, Chesrown added.

What Vroom wants

Vroom also will study cases for which its offers are not accepted.

“We don’t want Vroom to be perceived as not offering a great offer, a timely offer to the consumer, because we don’t think that will benefit either brand,” Chesrown said. “It could be that they got a higher offer or sold it after the sale ended. Those things happen, but we want to make sure the response they got from us was high quality.”

Vroom is looking for vehicles that have fewer than 100,000 miles on their odometers, are from the 2000 model year or newer and have clean titles, he said. But the company is not limited by vehicle make, model or segment, he added.

Vroom checks for outstanding recalls. If there is a safety recall, Vroom will have it fixed before reselling the vehicle.

“We look at where we can add the most amount of benefit,” he said. “That is on a car we traditionally think we’re going to have a good opportunity to make available to our consumers on our site, a car that we can bring up to the standard of retail grade. The cars that we know can pass our inspection. Those are the types of cars we can be the most aggressive on.”

Vroom says it has bought or sold 170,000 used vehicles since its launch in 2013.