At a glance:
- Strong availability and competitive pricing boosted trade demand.
- A 20% increase in units listed in March, with record 80,000 bids placed.
- Total retail value of vehicles sold rose to £52.6 million, a £10 million monthly increase.
- The Citroën C3 topped the profit chart for the first time.
- New entries from the Volkswagen Tiguan and Honda Civic and re-entry from the Jaguar XF shows demand across healthy mix of vehicle types.
April 2026 – Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor for March has revealed that excellent availability helped propel the platform to a record number of monthly bids and retail value of vehicles sold. The number of fresh vehicles being added to the platform jumped by 20% – leading to nearly 80,000 bids and a £10 million monthly rise in the total retail value of vehicles sold (£42 million to £52.6 million).
At model level, there were plenty of interesting threads to pull, with a split between consistent performers and surprise entries in the profit top 10. After gradually rising through the ranks, the Citroën C3 topped the chart in the sub-£10,000 retail bracket for the first time. Top 10 stalwarts – the Peugeot 3008, Ford Kuga, Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage – continued to be strong performers, but these were superseded by a new entry from the Volkswagen Tiguan in third place. The Honda Civic was another fresh entry, just behind a long-awaited re-entry from the Jaguar XF saloon.
Dealer Auction’s Marketplace Director, Kieran TeeBoon, commented: “The Jaguar XF appearing in the sub-£10,000 retail bracket is interesting and representative of the healthy mix of profit performers in March. February was characterised by a flight to safety in reliable favourites, while in March, we saw different car types, fuel types and brands appear in the top 10.
“As well as stock variety, dealers are reaping the benefits of competitive pricing. Stock is flying – the ‘days to sell’ metric for vehicles sold via natural auction was 2.7 days in March.1”
Talking of speed, the Nissan Qashqai was the fastest seller of the top 10 profit-makers in March, moving in 25 days on average. It was also the third-fastest seller for the platform overall, sitting just behind the Mazda6 and Mazda3. This supports its recent feat as the first model to achieve both the UK’s best-selling and fastest-selling used car in a single month, according to the latest Indicata Market Watch report.2
At brand level, Land Rover once again took the crown in the top 10 makes for models with a sub-£10,000 retail value, followed by BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Land Rover was also the king of the over-£10,000 chart, notably joined by Jaguar in second for the first time in over a year
TeeBoon concluded: “It’s encouraging to see buyer demand increasing, especially amid the January caution of this year’s forecast drop in five- and six-year-old trade vehicles. It’s certainly been a strong start to the year – so far!”
ENDS
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Source:
1Dealer Auction’s speed to sell metric looks at vehicles that have sold naturally via digital auction without any human intervention (e.g. negotiation).
2Turner, A., AMOnline (2026). Nissan Qashqai tops used car market in Indicata report. Available at: https://www.am-online.com/news/nissan-qashqai-tops-used-car-market-in-indicata-report (Accessed: 02/04/2026).
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 Autotrader. 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 £10,000 (we also track any standout models that retail at more than £10,000). We then compare the sold price for each model with the Autotrader market average to reveal the potential margin. For the brand table, we compare models with more than 50 units sold of models retailing at less than £10,000. We crunch the numbers at the start of every new month.
This edition analyses data from 1 to 31 March 2026.
