When you’re logged into the Motorway platform and looking at the Marketplace, you’ll see the live sale, also known as the daily online sale, running between 7pm and 3:30pm every day.
The live sale tab shows a vehicle list where the cars and vans for sale are displayed with a thumbnail photo and the make, model, year, mileage, and guide price. Click each of these thumbnails to see the full vehicle profile, including spec and documentation, and to place a bid. You’ll see on the right-hand side of the screen how many bids have already been placed, and how long is left in the sale.
When placing a bid in the live sale, you will see an error message if your bid is too far below the reserve price. Our proxy bidding system means that when you win a vehicle, you pay just £1 more than the second-highest bidder. This ensures that dealers don’t overpay, and sellers still get a competitive price. For more on this, see our FAQ What type of auction is Motorway?
At 3:30pm every day, the live sale tab becomes unavailable until it opens again at 7pm.
The second tab under Marketplace is called buy it now showing vehicles you can buy immediately at their 'Buy it now' price, or make a lower offer. This is always running, and vehicles are typically available in this sale for 24 hours. Cars and vans enter this sale when they fail to sell in the live sale.
Proxy bidding is not used in the buy it now sale so if you win a vehicle, the price payable is the offer you made. For more on this, see our FAQ How do I make an offer in the Buy it now sale?
The third tab in the Marketplace is your shortlist. Find the vehicles you’ve added by clicking on the star in their photo. From the Shortlist, you can navigate to vehicle profiles to see more info and make (and cancel) offers. To remove vehicles from your Shortlist, simply click the shaded star in their vehicle profile.