On my panel at the BVRLA Industry Outlook Conference, the conversation kept circling back to one uncomfortable truth. Relying on growth alone next year is going to be tough. For many operators, the real opportunity sits in the margins. How assets are defleeted, who they are sold to, and how confidently buyers engage with them.
The panel brought together different perspectives across the rental and remarketing ecosystem, but there was strong alignment on one thing. Profitability is now being shaped by decision quality, not just market conditions.
Jason Symes
jason.symes@dealerauction.co.uk
M: 07788 754579
Profit is being won or lost before the sale
One of the key themes we discussed was timing. Not in a theoretical sense, but in very practical terms. When do you defleet? What signals are you using? And how confident are you that the vehicle you are releasing will land with the right buyer at the right moment?
There is no shortage of data available to vendors today, but not all data is equally useful. Wholesale benchmarks remain important, but on the panel we talked about the growing role of retail indicators in shaping better defleet decisions. Metrics like retail desirability, days to sell and buyer appetite give a clearer picture of when a vehicle is likely to perform best in the wholesale market.
Getting this right doesn’t transform profitability overnight. What it does do is consistently unlock that one to two percent improvement that so many businesses are now chasing.
Finding the right buyer matters more than finding more buyers
Another strong thread in the discussion was buyer alignment. In a national market, exposure alone is no longer the differentiator. Precision is.
We talked about the value of cascading vehicles in a way that reflects how buyers actually behave. OEM vehicles presented first to franchise networks. Specialist stock surfaced to buyers who understand it. Geography considered properly, not as an afterthought.
When vehicles are matched to buyers who already value them, competition improves naturally. Prices strengthen without artificial inflation. Stock turns faster. That is where profit protection really happens.
This is not about excluding the wider trade. Local buyers remain important. But relying solely on local demand can mean missing the true sweet spot for a vehicle’s value.
Agility beats certainty
A point I was keen to reinforce on the panel is that certainty is becoming rarer. Markets move quickly, buyer sentiment shifts, and external pressures continue to land.
The operators performing best are not the ones trying to predict the future perfectly. They are the ones building flexibility into their remarketing strategies. Using live insight. Reviewing performance regularly. Being willing to change course when the data suggests it.
That agility is what allows businesses to sweat assets properly and avoid leaving value on the table.
Profitability is no longer just a finance problem
What came through clearly from the discussion is that profit is now a cross-functional issue. Remarketing decisions are influenced by operations, data, buyer behaviour and long-term relationships, not just residual values.
This mirrors a wider theme I have written about previously around confidence and capability in the market. Many of the same dynamics apply whether we are talking about EVs or ICE vehicles. You can read more on that perspective here:
Are independent dealers the missing piece in the EV movement?
The common thread is trust, trust in the data, trust in the buyers, and trust that small, consistent improvements really do add up.
A more disciplined view of growth
If there was one takeaway from the panel, it was this. The businesses that will perform best over the next year are not necessarily the ones chasing growth the hardest. They are the ones being most disciplined about how and where profit is made.
Smarter defleet timing, better buyer targeting, and a willingness to focus on marginal gains rather than headline numbers might sound like small levers, but in reality they’re the ones that matter most.
