U.K.: Auto Trader Bikes shows Honda CBR at top of searches

News release

Weekly searches for motorcycles in the London area have increased by 23% when comparing January and April this year. The figures have been released today by Auto Trader Bikes and suggest that more London commuters are considering options to cramped buses, car queues and long walks – and the threat of further tube strikes.

Helping smooth the online journey for bike buyers, Auto Trader Bikes has also announced significant site changes this week that will improve the process for sellers and present a simpler, richer content experience for all users. Framed in a new home page, these  are underpinned by improvements in site architecture that better reflect the 100% digital platform in which Auto Trader operates.

Earlier this year, Auto Trader Bikes was brought under the Auto Trader umbrella in a move designed to simplify the journey for customers, offering them one destination for all their motoring needs. Since then work has been undertaken to overhaul both presentation and functionality for site visitors.

“Auto Trader Bikes is now a destination that better reflects the brand in a research-led digital age,” explained Jon Quirk, Auto Trader Editor-in-Chief. “These developments are in response to the changing needs and behaviours of our consumers and will help extend our position as the UK’s number one marketplace for motorcycles. Key to this will be our increased emphasis on expert editorial content, including class-leading video reviews, that will allow consumers to make a more informed decision when searching for their dream bike.”

The new website benefits from 28% fewer clickable links, so is significantly less cluttered than its predecessor. Its softer, modern design has also been built to work on all devices that are being used by site visitors – now that more than half of all searches are undertaken on mobile.

For trade sellers, improvements include changes to inventory display, enabling manufacturers and dealers to optimize stock presentation. Strong editorial content supported by data insight promise to enrich the experience still further for site visitors, whether they are buying a new bike, or are simply browsing and dreaming.

Private sellers will also benefit from the changes. A new platform has been introduced that uses architecture underpinning the car side of the Auto Trader operation. As well as optimisation for desktop and tablets, benefits include more straightforward advertising packages, a new Telesafe provider with local rate as opposed to premium calls and improved security features such as text in imaging to prevent scamming.

Importantly, it will still be free to list bikes costing £1,000 or less.

Auto Trader Bikes – Top 10 searched for models in March 2014

Make   Model March ‘14

1          Honda             CBR     224,320

2          Yamaha          YZF      177,697

3          Suzuki             GSXR   151,378

4          BMW               R1200            59,930

5          Honda             CB       57,172

6          Honda             VFR     56,229

7          Kawasaki        ZX        52,282

8          Kawasaki        Z          45,718

9          Kawasaki        NINJA  45,468

10       Honda             CBF     42,135

Auto Trader is the UK’s number one digital motoring marketplace presenting around 400,000 new and used vehicles every day, 50 percent more than any other site. 15 million visitors — more than half of all auto classified traffic — comes to Auto Trader each month, making an average of 75 searches per second. They spend more than one and a half hours on the site, eight times longer than the nearest competitor. Peak time for searching takes place between 6 and 11 pm and 60% of visits now take place through mobile-optimised site and apps developed for mobile and tablet.