April 2025 – Data from Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor has revealed another strong showing from BMW in the brand and model charts.
The premium brand continued its solid 2025 performance by heading up the top 10 makes for models with a retail value of under £10,000 for the third month running, with an average retail margin of £2,200. Furthermore, it came third in the top 10 in the over-£10,000 chart.
BMW also shone in the model chart, with two models featuring in the top five sub-£10,000 retail bracket. The 1 Series clocked an average retail margin of £2,150, closely followed by the 3 Series (£2,125) – enough to earn them fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Elsewhere in the sub-£10,000 retail model chart, the Ford Kuga topped the table for the first time in 2025, with an average margin of £2,225, after coming a close second in February. Once again, the mainstream SUV appeared in both the under- and over-£10,000 categories, highlighting its popularity across different buyer segments.
Dealer Auction’s Marketplace Director, Kieran TeeBoon, commented: “BMW has registered an emphatic performance so far in 2025. It’s been a competitive year so far – in March, only £325 separated first and tenth place in the top 10 sub-£10,000 profit-making models. It’s also interesting to see these trends within the chart itself, with certain profit-making models being particularly fast out of the blocks.”
TeeBoon points to the performance of the tenth-place Nissan Qashqai, which boasted the quickest days-to-sell (26) and Average Auto Trader Retail Rating (91)1 in March, as well as clocking a respectable average margin (£1,900). “The key messages to dealers for 2025 are clear: profit and speed,” he says.
In the top 10 for models retailing above £10,000, stalwart Land Rover models led the pack once again. The Discovery Sport topped the chart with an average retail margin of £4,325, followed by the Range Rover Evoque (£3,750).
TeeBoon concluded: “Used cars are moving quickly on our platform and it seems to be a common trend – AutoTrader have also just announced that Q1 represented the fastest rate of used car sales ever recorded.2 With hot competition for quality stock, dealers are harnessing the power of digital to stay on the front foot. By including digital auctions as part of their stock-buying portfolio, they can be in several places at once and snap up profitable stock from a variety of sources.”
Take us for a test drive.
Curious about what you see? Then why not try Dealer Auction for free for 30 days?
About Dealer Auction
Dealer Auction is the UK’s leading digital remarketing platform. We give buyers and sellers more choice, better insight and greater margins. Dealer Auction is an independent company, created through a joint venture between Cox Automotive and Auto Trader. For more information, visit www.dealerauction.co.uk.
Launched in January 2022, Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor tracks the potential retail margin that can be achieved on vehicles bought via Dealer Auction’s open network. We track models meeting two key criteria: more than 20 units sold with a retail price of less than £25,000. We then compare the sold price for each model with the Auto Trader market average to reveal the potential margin. For the brand table, we compare models with more than 50 units sold. We crunch the numbers at the start of every new month.
Notes:
1The average ‘Auto Trader Retail Rating’ uses three key metrics to determine the consumer demand for the vehicle:
- Average days to sell – Calculated for the whole of the UK and then adjusted for the variations Auto Trader have observed locally in your area.
- Live market supply – Comparing the national supply level for the vehicle over the last seven days with the usual level of supply Auto Trader have seen in the market over the last six months.
- Live buyer demand – Analysing how many people are currently searching for the vehicle on Auto Trader, comparing consumer search behaviour over the last seven days against the level of interest over the last six months.
