Online services
Rico van der Vies
(35), CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER AUTOMOTIVE MEDIAVENTIONS
Amv’s Rico Van Der Vies On The Power Of Autotrack Easybuy
BUY A CAR ONLINE
and it’s delivered to your door
With AutoTrack.nl, Autowereld.nl and Gaspedaal.nl, Automotive MediaVentions (AMV) was already seen as the leading business partner for car companies in the Netherlands. Last year, the acquisition of an online car-buying service for used cars completed the circle – and the offering. “Thanks to AutoTrack EasyBuy, we’ve branched out from media to car sales,” explains AMV’s Chief Commercial Officer, Rico van der Vies.
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utomotive MediaVentions’ basic proposition is crystal clear, according to Rico van der Vies. “We want to be able to provide everyone in the Netherlands with a used car. Until recently, we had two ways of marketing brands under the AMV banner: We found potential clients for car companies by matching supply and demand, and we had Gaspedaal.nl, which generated lots of traffic to the websites of those car companies.”
By adding a new service, which has since been renamed AutoTrack EasyBuy, AMV is appealing to a wider range of consumers. “We’re now also helping buyers we weren’t able to serve with our existing titles. These are people who want to buy a used car remotely, with certain guarantees. They might be consumers who don’t feel like going to a dealership or don’t have the time, but also people who’ve had bad experiences with dealerships and others who just want to make sure they’re buying a really good used car. And that’s a sizeable target group: we estimate that it accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the market.”
In 2023, the successful joint venture between DPG Media and Mediahuis was able to expand its services thanks to the acquisition of Bynco, a platform that allows people to buy a car entirely online. This approach has earned AMV a prominent place in the Dutch automotive world in recent years.
Since the start of joint venture Automotive MediaVentions (AMV), the reach of Gaspedaal.nl and AutoTrack successfully increased year after year, resulting in +81% in 2023 as compared to the launch in 2019. With the acquisition of e-commerce platform Bynco, AMV is the first company in the Netherlands that has made it possible to buy and pay for a car completely online and have it shipped right to your front door.
“We don’t just generate leads anymore, but sales as well,” Van der Vies continues. “This proposition allows us to serve all car buyers in the Netherlands while providing
an additional service to the car companies we work with. We enable them to reach new buyers without having to make their own investments – they don’t have to set up their own sales channels, for example.”
The new name says it all: AutoTrack EasyBuy makes it easier for potential car buyers to find their next car, allowing them to choose from a selection of used cars that meet extra stringent quality requirements. The cars are no more than eight years old, have a total travel distance of less than 150,000 kilometres and the asking price can’t exceed 100,000 euros. “Also, all these vehicles have had an independent inspection,” Van der Vies adds, “making them maintenance-free for at least 12,000 kilometres or 12 months. We have to ensure a quality product, otherwise people won’t trust us enough to purchase remotely.”
“Buying a used car doesn’t get much easier than that”
If you buy a car on AutoTrack EasyBuy, it’s delivered to your door with no hassle. “We go the extra mile to unburden our customers. And if someone decides that they don’t like their new car, we offer a 14-day free return policy.” Buying a used car doesn’t get much easier than that.”
What began with the acquisition of a promising startup is now growing into a natural addition to Automotive MediaVentions’ existing offering.
Van der Vies: “At this stage, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the market is going to do. But we’re seeing good results, and this proposition could have a very bright future. This is real entrepreneurship, you know? We’re convinced that there’s a market, but we still have to test our theory in practice in the time to come.”
The current figures are encouraging, Van der Vies confirms, despite some initial hesitation in the industry.
“We noticed that car companies were a bit nervous about taking this step: allowing us to sell their cars. But now it’s clear that they’re increasingly starting to see it as a positive development. We’re less than a year in and have already achieved more than 50 percent growth in the number of car ads. And those cars actually get sold. That does give me a chuckle: we’ve branched out from media to car sales!”
