Droom, an online automobile marketplace that offers new as well as used cars of different brands, is finding it difficult to source used vehicles.

Customers are hanging on to their old vehicles, postponing their decision to replace them in the pandemic situation.

Despite the growing need for personal mobility induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and the increase in digital transactions, the company’s online used car business will only manage to reach its 2019 sales by the end of the year.

“Through the months of June and July 2020 the entire industry faced supply constraints
because of the lockdown. In the used car business, it was even more difficult as we faced a supply crunch because of financial uncertainties that forced people to delay the sale of old cars and replace them with new ones. On the other hand, the demand for used cars grew significantly,” said Akshay Singh, chief strategy officer, Droom.

“The demand-supply mismatch impacted our sales but we will recover and by December-January we will be at the same level as last year,” said Singh.

In 2019, Droom did business worth $1.2 billion (Rs 8,900 cr), said Singh. The company, which was founded in 2015, had registered a 100 per cent year-on-year growth last year. While the company sells anything on wheels, including wheelchairs and planes, automobiles constitute 95 per cent of its sales.

The top sellers in the Droom platform are the Swift, the Swift Dzire and the i10. “The hatchbacks are good sellers and post pandemic we have witnessed a surge in the sales of these hatchbacks. The Japanese cars which have a good resale value also give us good numbers such as the Honda City, the Toyota Innova and the Toyota Corolla,” said Singh.

The online automobile marketplace commands almost 80 per cent market share. It faces competition from classified companies such as OLX and Qwikr, content-driven companies such as cardekho and carwale and offline businesses Cars24, Mahindra First Choice and Maruti True Value.