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For the first time in South Africa, car buyers can enjoy a complete end-to-end digital vehicle shopping experience, saving them vast amounts of time and energy, through the new Avo virtual vehicle mall feature.

This is the latest in the evolution of the super app, Avo by Nedbank, which was launched in May 2020, changing the way people interact with e-commerce.

“While there are already quite a few websites and aggregators where people can browse vehicles, the existing options are still very limited,’’ says Julie Vetter, Avo Executive at Nedbank. ‘While these online portals are offered to a client to shop for a car, the Avo platform is a rich environment that allows for real-time engagement between buyers and sellers, as well as facilitating completely secure payments.’

The auto portal is linked to the Avo super app with just one click and opens a desktop environment for ease of use. The pilot launch took place in July 2021 as the team geared up to offer users the best vehicle-buying experience.

Avo was launched during the pandemic and aimed to bring consumers and businesses together, matching consumers’ lifestyle needs to product and service offerings with safe, mobile payments backed by bank-grade security, all on one convenient platform.

Consumers and businesses can manage their daily lives through a rapidly expanding array of products and services in the Avo super app ecosystem. In the year since its launch, Avo has gained over 250 000 consumers and 20 000 merchants, continuously adding product and service innovations.

The new auto category is the latest of these innovations, providing a unique virtual sales forum where users can ask and get answers to questions about vehicles using the chat function, send documents and even make video calls, all within the platform. Consumers can apply and be approved for financing, using the Nedbank MFC car finance interface, completing an end-to-end seamless buying journey digitally.

This alleviates the burden on the buyer to source the best financing deal from a bank-approved dealer, while also allowing these approved dealers to benefit from a deal introduced by Avo.

‘The auto platform will have ground-breaking features that will allow users to conduct affordability and credit checks upfront and will exponentially increase the chances of an approved deal flowing back to the dealer. This is important as it prevents a dealer from being inundated with potentially fruitless leads,’ says Vetter.

Avo will have over 80 MFC-approved dealers onboarded by the end of this year, with a total of 2 500 vehicles. With the stringent requirements in place for a dealership to become an approved bank dealer, the consumer can take comfort in this additional layer of security. Over the next three years, the platform is targeting over 1 000 dealers around the country.

‘Having the entire process on a single platform is truly game changing,’ says Vetter. Previously, a consumer would have to repeat the same process with multiple stakeholders, from different dealerships, to financial service providers, which takes up a lot of time.

Now, however, users can explore as many vehicles as they want, submit their application, and start driving away in a new car in a matter of days.

For more information visit: www.auto.avo.africa.