New used-car buying experience

An experienced local businessman and a web designer have joined forces in Newtown to create a start-up that promises a new kind of used car buying experience. 

Upon reading the shocking statistic that less than 1% of people are completely satisfied with the current car buying experience*, Mark Barnes, a Newtown businessman with over 20 years’ experience in the motor trade decided to seek help from Stephen Blackwell, a web designer colleague. 

Together they created what they call a ‘Car Finding Agency’, a mix of traditional customer service values with the efficiency of digital shopping, taking the customer on a travel agent-style used car buying journey that begins online and ends with a personal consultation in their ‘café chic’ showroom.

The key difference with their service from that of their competitors is that they say they can find customers a used car whatever their needs and whatever their budget.  Whilst they do have a small range of hand-picked cars in-store, Mark stresses that the focus is on the car finding service.

“The cars that we have in stock are more like passion-projects for me, just really lovely cars that I couldn’t resist buying! We think our attraction really lies in the car finding service that we specialise in. 

Instead of spending hours and hours in dealerships or searching online we promise customers a simple, transparent, smooth experience where you enter what you’re looking for in our online wizard and then meet with us to discuss our recommendations with a personal consultation. It’s a simple idea but one that will save customers loads of time whilst also providing them with that personal experience.”

Stephen Blackwell, the designer behind the website said, “One thing that really attracted me to the project was the entire journey we can take the customer on. From my personal experience buying a used car can be a daunting and confusing job so the fact that we can take a customer from a simple search wizard right through to recommendations, searching, test driving, inspecting, warranting and delivering is really powerful.”

One other frequent problem with dealerships that customers often cite is a lack of trust and pricing transparency, this is another area where they hope they will win over customers. 

“With the incorporation of Trustpilot reviews into our website and very transparent pricing we really hope potential customers will see that we’re here to create honest, lasting customer relationships,” said Mark.

And it seems to be paying off with their very first customer having already left a 5-star review, “Wonderful, highly recommend!” says local resident, Emma Lacy.

For an instant, no obligation, one-to-one meeting go to reviveanddrive.co.uk and see what they can find you.