Car Dealer Magazine - CAP’s Black Book Live
CAP has launched Black Book Live – a system that publishes trade price changes as soon as they are identified.
Black Book Live solves the problem of uncertainty around changes in vehicle values between the publication dates of a ‘traditional’ monthly price guide, says the firm.
Black Book Live is researched by a team of expert editors, each specialising in their own vehicle sectors.
And as soon as an editor is satisfied that sufficient evidence is available to justify a price alteration, the new value is published – together with a brief editorial commentary explaining the rationale behind the price change.
The monthly version of Black Book continues in all its current formats. However, accuracy and relevance will be enhanced for monthly Black Book customers due to a later production deadline.
CAP chief editor Chris Crow said: ‘We have introduced Black Book Live because today’s market demands the most accurate and timely valuation information possible. The elephant in the room for the traditional monthly guides is that they are inevitably out of date as soon as the market moves in either direction and Black Book Live solves that problem.
‘Analysis of ‘real world’ trading conditions reveals that even where values change little on a month to month basis, the real time dynamic of the market can see variations in values of several percentage points at different stages in a given month.
‘It is necessary to also recognise that a fully independent monthly pricing benchmark will remain important to many operators across the automotive sector. The good news for those customers is that our launch of Black Book Live will enable a much later ‘snapshot’ of the market to be taken for the regular Black Book publication than our previous deadlining process allowed.’
