CarTrade

Vinay Sanghi, the founder and CEO of CarTrade, had been trying different business strategies to keep the company, which he founded in 2010 as an online marketplace for used and new cars, profitable and on track for growth. In a crowded and disorganized dealer marketplace in India, and an environment where consumers had gotten used to buying online, Sanghi had found that some big challenges were getting dealers to believe the validity of digital platforms to bring in customers, and for CarTrade itself to grow, get more margins from dealers, and get more advertising revenue from car manufacturers. Sanghi came from a world of brick-and-mortar retail and his family had run car dealerships, so he had started drawing on some of that history to build a franchising model, and acquire a large offline auctioner of vehicles in India. Plans were also underway to build an NBFC to lend to dealers and consumers. Would this be enough, and were these promising strategies? What would be the way forward for CarTrade, an e-marketplace, to build its margins, solidify its customer base and steer toward growth?