The online used car dealer Cazoo has been in Germany for just nine months. After selling tens of thousands of cars in the home market of Great Britain, the company around CEO Alex Chesterman (52) also started with some noise in this country, wanting to be the “Amazon for used cars”.
In order to become better known, Chesterman chose sports sponsorship, probably the most expensive way of all. In the new season, the Cazoo logo will be seen on the jerseys of Bundesliga soccer team SC Freiburg and German basketball champion Alba Berlin. Chesterman willingly pays millions for this. But the break could be over much faster than expected.
Cazoo presented its half-year figures on Tuesday. An explosive event, as the company, which raised around two billion dollars in just a few years, fired around 15 percent of its workforce in June. Due to the bleak situation in the global economy, profitability instead of growth was suddenly on the agenda. But Cazoo is a long way from healthy business.
In the first half of 2022, the British sold 43,668 used cars, more than twice as much as a year ago (+113%). But the loss rose even more extreme from 102 million to 243 million pounds.
A lot is now in question at Cazoo – for example, how long the company will continue to be active in the German, French, Spanish and Italian markets. CEO Chesterman said a “strategic review of our business in mainland Europe” was underway. Insiders reported to manager magazin on Tuesday that the top management and the country managers would carry out the audit themselves, and that external consultants had not been hired for it. In September, Cazoo wants to inform the employees about the results.