You may not have heard of Manheim Europe, but you will probably have heard of Motors and Carmony – two sites which match buyers with the right second hand car for them. Manheim Europe has taken the bull by the horns and are currently in the process of changing the second hand car buying landscape, via the portal of the Carmony website. With car prices starting at £500 on the website, and with a large dealership database, the site already has most of the market covered – apart from one important audience, which have, so far, been overlooked.

Carmony has been in business since 2008, and due to its exhaustive approach and quality assurance measures, has risen to be one of the biggest car selling websites in the UK. This rise is set to continue, because Carmony is going to become the first website to sell luxury cars valued at £25,000 and over. This approach will set the site apart from the competition, and give it the head start it needs to corner the luxury cars market. If it works, and people begin buying expensive cars online, then it won’t be long before other websites also begin offering this service.

Carmony’s current competition are sites such as Auto trader and the Trade Media Group, whose main audience are people with average incomes buying family cars, or cars valued at under £10,000 for the most part. Gumtree also has a decent turnover of cars, but seeing as Gumtree is not a specialist car website, but rather a sales portal for all things second hand, as well as having a thriving jobs board, it is unlikely to pose as serious competition when it comes to selling luxury cars. Arnold Clark is another popular car website, although it does not offer nationwide coverage, only having regional sales pages.

It will be interesting to see how the Carmony rebranding will change the market – will we see the emergence of websites which only sell luxury cars and will deal in vehicles valued at well over Carmony’s £25,000 starter price? The rebranding is a great move for the company, which has already proved that it knows its customers and can read a market. The potential to buy cars starting at £25,000 could help some people achieve the dream of owning a luxury car – although some people may not have the funds for a new Jaguar, they may be able to get a slightly older model that is in great condition, for a price they can afford.