Fivetran > Case Studies > Fivetran Empowers CarOnSale with Data Analytics for Enhanced Online Auto Trading

Fivetran Empowers CarOnSale with Data Analytics for Enhanced Online Auto Trading

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Automotive
Cement

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Use Cases

Smart Parking
Vehicle-to-Infrastructure

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Founded in 2018, CarOnSale is an online B2B auction platform for used cars. Currently, around 18,000 used car dealers are registered on the site and thousands of vehicles a month are auctioned off. CarOnSale is disrupting the way pan-European dealer networks have traditionally traded. By leveraging data analytics and unique re-marketing technology, the Berlin-based start-up is providing a frictionless, end-to-end service and growing fast across Europe. The company is focused on using data analytics to differentiate itself in the market and provide unique market intelligence.

The Challenge

CarOnSale, a disruptive pan-European platform for car dealers, identified data as a key differentiator in their market. As an online platform, they aimed to cut through the complexity of traditional car trading by harvesting and analyzing data around car auctions. This would provide them with unique market intelligence. The company recognized the need for a centralized architecture, hosted in the cloud, to collect and analyze data at speed and scale. They explored different options to support ELT (Extract, Load and Transform) as opposed to the traditional ETL approach. After selecting Snowflake as their cloud-based data warehouse, they needed to find the ideal data integration solution. Aynaz Bagherynezhad, Data Team Lead, had used Fivetran in a previous role and when Snowflake recommended it as the best way to connect to data sources, it confirmed her own experience.

The Solution

The three-way integration between Fivetran, Snowflake and Tableau provides the backbone for CarOnSale’s business model. Data around key performance indicators and business logic is used to create visualizations that are shared across the company. Every team has access to personalized reports, typically on a daily basis but with weekly and monthly options, depending on the metrics being tracked. The platform’s recommendation engine is a strong example of how Fivetran helps. Fivetran pulls data from various sources to enable automatic analysis. Another key process takes data from the PostgreSQL database and SendGrid, the company’s email marketing tool, for campaign analysis. This integration allows CarOnSale to bring buyers to the platform at the right time, when the right product is available, maximizing the chance of sale.

Operational Impact

The combination of Fivetran and Snowflake has helped CarOnSale achieve market differentiation that is fundamental to its data-driven business model. The needs of buyers and sellers of second-hand cars are quickly met in an end-to-end service powered by analytics. The system is robust and reliable to use. The company is excited about its data infrastructure not just for what it can do today, but how it will enable them to differentiate further in the future as they continue to expand into other countries. The inherent flexibility and scalability of cloud-based data integration has already opened up markets in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Austria and the Netherlands.

Quantitative Benefit

Data analytics fueled by Fivetran as the key differentiator from all competitors
Ability to build a recommendation engine based on past buying behaviour and activity
Daily personalized reports for all teams across the business