Mohammed Alshoaiby Saudi Gazette Saudi Arabia is one of the world's largest adopters of social media per capita and, according to BBC, the most likely social media users to share online content with each other. Nowadays, anything that can be traded is being traded online, with a plethora of classified sites for buyers and sellers and, with record-breaking smartphone usage, many of these sites are going mobile. However, it was only a little over a year ago that the Kingdom had its first dedicated automotive trading site, AbiSayara.com. Sigurd Andersen, General Manager at Abi Media Network, the company that runs AbiSayara.com, said they had sold over 12,000 cars since their launch approximately 18 months ago. “There's a lot more focus now on certified, pre-owned cars (and) most of the major distributors are moving into trade-ins and making special promotions for certified pre-owned vehicles,” he said. AbiSayara.com stands as a reference point for consumers and a mobile showroom for dealers to display their entire inventories, he added. “The end consumer can go online and see what's there. He doesn't have to drive around town five times to see what's on offer. He can also compare models online before going to the showrooms. “This makes the end consumers more well informed and gives them a bit more power.” On the dealers' benefits in signing up with the online autotrading website and opting for an AbiSayara microsite, Andersen said: “They would have more volume and they'll have more people calling and asking about their cars. In that fashion, numbers will drive sales.” AbiSayara offers dealers reportedly low-cost monthly and annual subscriptions to display their inventory on the site and create a microsite with that inventory allowing dealers to post their models' prices, specs and any offers they may have running at any given time. Al Futaim Motors' Volvo are one of the subscribers to AbiSayara in the Kingdom, opting for their own microsite on the online autotrading platform. David Forster, general manager at Al Futaim Motors in the Kingdom, is an advocate of digital and social marketing. On AbiSayara, he said: “We know from the statistics that Internet usage is soaring. “It's a cost-effective platform to get on the radar, giving us a presence on every mobile phone in the Kingdom. It helps us open up garages in everybody's houses,” he added. Volvo have recently pushed much of their focus towards certified pre-owned vehicles, said Forster, indicating that the local perceptions of second-hand vehicles are changing in the Kingdom. “It might be a used car to the seller but it's a new car to the buyer,” he said. Volvo reportedly sold five to ten percent of their cars on AbiSayara.com since they joined the website. “It's really uncharted territory in the Kingdom, which is a very dynamic, mobile environment,” Forster said. Forster said having an online showroom increases a brand's exposure incalculably: “Even when I'm asleep at 3 a.m. someone could be online, at home or on their mobile, looking at Volvos on AbiSayara. “It supports me in having the correct processes in place and in having the right information available to the consumer.” With other sites focused on buying and selling vehicles in one swift payment, Andersen said AbiSayara has taken into consideration the emerging Saudi middle class, influenced by over 70 percent of cars in the Kingdom being sold through financing options through banks and dealers. AbiSayara allows banks to sponsor their site, having an option on every car to look at insurance and financing solutions with that bank, which gives the site a unique edge over their competitors, at the same time offering wide exposure to their sponsors. Though AbiSayara is both in Arabic and English, Andersen said that of the 300,000 visits the website receives per month, 90 percent of the traffic is on the Arabic site, indicating a young, tech-savvy, Saudi target audience. Saudi Gazette talked to some AbiSayara users on their experiences with the website, to widely positive outcomes. Mohamed Hassan, who recently sold his 2009 Hyundai through AbiSayara.com, said: “I needed to sell my car fast and I found it easy to put my car on AbiSayara.com.” “I had a number of calls and within two weeks I had found a buyer who was willing to pay the asking price.” On the buying side, Tariq Hussein has been using AbiSayara.com for over a year and has bought several cars for his business through the website. “I find it easy to navigate and I like the fact that I can find used cars with warranty from the official dealers. I have not been able to find that anywhere else,” he said.
