Popular Youtuber goes into auto auction business
— it’s about the engagement,” Gagliese added. “There’s guys on Youtube with 3.7 million followers that get 100,000 to 300,000 views, whereas he’s averaging anywhere from 700,000 to one and a half million. That’s over 35% of his audience.”
That audience helped propel the introduction of Cars & Bids.
With the sudden flood of submissions, Demuro quickly got to work on his backyard patio with his co-founder, Blake Machado, and the four other members of the team, dealing with the onslaught while trying to socially distance.
On one of the top car auction sites, ebay Motors, the sellers submit pictures and write up a description. Cars & Bids wanted all its listings to have the same information. This required editorial oversight. Sellers must fill out a detailed questionnaire and submit upward of 100 photos. It’s a timely process.
“To me it felt exhaustive, but they held my hand through it the whole time,” said Nick Szabo, 33, a marketing product manager in St. Louis who recently listed his Porsche 944 Turbo on the site.
Even with the team working frantically, as soon as it would decide on a reserve price for one car, five other submissions would arrive.
Demuro has built this audience with a personal touch. He comes off like a buddy telling you about a cool car. He rarely advertises products, and avoids gimmicks. For a half-hour at a time, he’s digging deep on all of a car’s quirks and features.
“I chose Cars & Bids because I follow Doug Demuro’s channel,” said Andrew Johnson, who works at Authentic Motorcars in Redmond, Washington, and had been in talks with Demuro to bring him some cars to review. Johnson, 31, sold his 2002 lifted BMW X5 for $12,700 on the site.
Bring a Trailer is Cars & Bids’ closest competition. Both sites mix online auctioning with a Facebook comments section. Sellers, potential buyers and onlookers will often have vibrant discussions for each car, which adds to the fun of seeing bids scuttle upward.
“Transparency really has value when you’re stuck behind a screen during this horrible pandemic,” said Jeremy Anspach, chief executive of Purecars, a digital advertising company for dealerships. “And when I’m on Bring a Trailer, it’s almost soothing for me in the evenings to just see what was listed and what the comments are.”
That community, transparency and dialogue around cars helped push Bring a Trailer’s sales to $230 million in 2019. And of the roughly 335 cars listed weekly, 80% sell. Since its introduction in June, Cars & Bids has sold 450 cars, bringing in $8.5 million in sales, with a 75% sellthrough pace.
But behind this simplicity is Demuro’s obsession with making things perfect. And if Cars & Bids holds firm, it may be his least stressful project to date.
“The first few days I woke up terrified,” he said. “I would go on the internet on my phone. Is it still on? OK. Yes. Are there bids coming in? OK, yes, there are — I don’t have that fear anymore.”