Introduction to Glass’s dealer forums and focus groups.

During the first half of 2011 Glass’s held a series of dealer forums and we wanted to share with you the common questions we received from our customers, with our resident expert Adrian Rushmore providing the answers. If you’d like to be involved in future Glass’s research, please email your details to marketing@eurotaxglass.co.uk and we’ll be in touch!

Q) What is a Glass’s trade valuation?
A) The typical buying/selling prices for cars that require minimal cosmetic work to bring them up to retail standard.

Q) How do Glass’s create a valuation?
A) This is a combination of observed market prices and field research conducted and analysed by our team of expert Editors. Over the next year we will process over 1 million auction trade prices and 2.5 million asking prices from independent and franchise dealers.

Q) What do Glass’s mean when they refer to ‘Observations’?
A) Observations are the market prices that we use to compile our Guide values. Market prices are divided into dealer forecourt prices, dealer transacted prices, and different groupings of trade prices (including auction, wholesale, manufacturer etc.)

Q) Is it true Glass’s are aligned to manufacturers?
A) No we’re not, this is a misconception shared by some dealers. It is true that manufacturers share their sales data with us and are keen to impress upon us some fairly forthright views on values. However, we have to reflect a true market wide view on prices and the manufacturers only represent one element of the market.

Q) With so many points of reference for vehicle valuations how do I know which to choose?
A) Many dealers feel the need to refer to several reference points at a time, but this can be both time consuming and confusing. Referring to advertised retail prices can be useful but they are far less volatile than price changes taking place in the trade. This means that trade prices can be high or low in relation to asking prices, and dealers need an understanding of both.

Q) Why don’t you value some vehicles in the Guide?
A) We hold values for over 34,000 models and the printed Guide would need to double in size to accommodate all of them. This requires us to be selective about what we include, so the guide contains the most popular models in the market. However, our electronic products GlassNet and Evaluator are not limited by the constraints of the printed guide and so we are able to include all models, amounting to c90% of the cars on our roads up to 18 years of age.

Q) How do Glass’s prioritise which new vehicles to value in the Guide?
A) Once again, we prioritise the most popular vehicles, but we do require sufficient price evidence from the market before we publish the valuation.

Q) How do I value vehicles pre 1999?
A) The Older Car Guide is the obvious answer as it provides car values back to 1992. This is invaluable for cars in the premium or niche categories as values can vary from the low hundreds to high thousands of pounds. For the more standard type of cars, a judgement can be made using our main guide to obtain the oldest quoted value, together with an assessment of condition for the car in question.