{"id":832291,"date":"2025-07-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=832291"},"modified":"2025-07-21T13:23:51","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T11:23:51","slug":"big-change-in-how-webuycars-sells-and-buys-cars-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/832291\/big-change-in-how-webuycars-sells-and-buys-cars-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Big change in how WeBuyCars buys and sells cars in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WeBuyCars, one of South Africa\u2019s largest vehicle trading platforms, is making a significant change in how it buys and sells vehicles by placing artificial intelligence (AI) at the centre of its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to chief digital officer Wynand Beukes, the company is currently running two major AI systems internally. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two big AI drivers in WeBuyCars, called Blue and Orange,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrange is the customer-facing large language model (LLM), and that\u2019s on our website. It also includes AI functionality used by our internal teams.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlue is a collection of machine learning models that hold our pricing and vehicle information, based on historical data, purchase and sale history, and market trends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These AI models are updated weekly and used to guide decision-making, particularly pricing, which is essential in the vehicle trade business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since late 2022, AI has become more mainstream, mainly due to the introduction of tools like OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WeBuyCars said the technology is already being put to use. \u201cBlue has bought just over 2,800 cars autonomously, without any human pricing involved. We\u2019re scaling that up as we go<\/strong>,\u201d Beukes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These systems are designed to handle repetitive and high-volume tasks efficiently. Beukes explained that agentic AI is able to break a job down into smaller steps, plan how to do it, and work through those steps without human intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift to AI is the latest development in WeBuyCars\u2019 digital overhaul. The company began over two decades ago as a small operation run by brothers Dirk and Faan van der Walt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days, most processes were manual. When Beukes joined the business 17 years in, even core functions such as inventory, sales, and finances were still being run through basic spreadsheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything was managed on a Google Sheet. And they sold over 2,000 vehicles this way a month. But it had reached breaking point. We couldn’t just throw more people at the problem. We knew we had to digitalise,\u201d said Beukes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He noted that at the time, the company faced a choice: adopt a standard enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or build its own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c2,000 cars is a lot of stock to manage, and it\u2019s difficult to do that on a Google Sheet. We decided to build our own software from the ground up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That decision laid the groundwork for the system that runs the business today. It manages all aspects of the company\u2019s operations, from sales and pricing to customer leads and marketing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WeBuyCars now operates 17 large vehicle showrooms, known as \u201cvehicle supermarkets\u201d, and nearly 100 smaller \u201cbuying pods\u201d across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it controls its own software and data, the company is able to test new ideas and features quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u2019s marketing division also plays a large role in feeding the AI systems. Beukes said the business generates many of its sales and purchase leads through its website and social media platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI helps process those leads, allowing human staff to focus on the more unusual or complex cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we can automate a certain percentage of our lead or buy-lead management, we can handle more leads with the same number of people,\u201d explained Beukes. \u201cThen we let the humans focus on the edge cases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all vehicles are suitable for automated pricing, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason a human has to price a Polo Vivo, because the volumes are so high. But in fringe cases, like a 1974 Mercedes-Benz, that\u2019s difficult to price. It needs human understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beukes noted that the company isn\u2019t aiming for full automation, but rather for a system where technology handles the bulk of routine tasks and human expertise is reserved for where it\u2019s most needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said AI is simply the next step in making the business more efficient, scalable, and responsive to customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WeBuyCars, one of South Africa\u2019s largest vehicle trading platforms, is making a significant change in how it buys and sells vehicles by placing artificial intelligence (AI) at the centre of its operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":829658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[8556,853,12861],"class_list":["post-832291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-ai","tag-south-africa","tag-webuycars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832291"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832306,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832291\/revisions\/832306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}