The result is that the average consumer is shrewder than ever and eager for a site that can help them find the best deal for the best price and with plenty of flexibility. On top of that, you have a higher interest rate because interest rates are going up.” “Which is really tough because people who thought they could afford a $450 per month car are now told to buy that same car for $600 per month. “In Q1, we’re starting to see retail inventory prices start to depreciate like they normally would, so our assumption is that 2022 will be more like 2019 in terms of normal patterns of depreciation, but we don’t expect prices to go back to where they were in 2019,” Arison told TechCrunch, noting the average car sales price increase from 2021 to 2022 is so far only 17.5%, but that those vehicles are on average a year or two older than the previous years. More generally, year-over-year, used car prices have gone up nearly 33%, according to data from Car Gurus. From 2020 to 2021, prices on Shift’s platform went up nearly 40%, from around $16,400 to a nearly $23,000 average sale price, according to George Arison, Shift’s co-founder and CEO. Rising inflation and a supply chain that was already constrained by the pandemic and will now suffer further due to Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to a decrease in new car purchases, which means fewer used cars are hitting the market.ĭemand for vehicles, however, has not dropped, leading to skyrocketing prices for used cars. The deal is a nod toward the direction the online auto market is moving, where even the sale of used cars will require a first-class, seamless user experience. Used car e-commerce platform Shift has acquired some of competitor Fair Technologies’ technology, allowing Shift to become the Amazon of the used car marketplace, a platform that displays third-party listings from dealers alongside the company’s own inventory.

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