Creating a seamless vehicle listing experience for Cars Guide.
Client
Autotrader Australia
Industry
Automotive
Services
Business Analysis, UX, UI Design, Frontend Development, PWA Development, OCR and Workflow Automation.
Year
2021
Autotrader Private Party Listings Platform
Autotrader Australia recruited Soda Digital to help transform its private seller marketplace experience through a mobile-first Progressive Web Application (PWA) designed to simplify vehicle listing creation and improve marketplace conversion performance.
The project formed part of a broader strategic initiative by Autotrader to strengthen Cars Guide's position within the highly competitive Australian automotive classifieds market. Soda Digital was engaged to engineer a streamlined and conversion-focused listing experience that reduced friction for private sellers, improved usability across mobile devices, and created a scalable foundation for future marketplace growth. The result was a modern listing platform that combined intelligent automation, responsive UX, and deep third-party integrations to make selling a vehicle faster and easier for everyday users.
Challenge
The existing listing experience on Cars Guide was slow, complex, and difficult for everyday users to complete.
Research within the project identified several major friction points. Users were expected to know detailed vehicle specifications, manually enter large amounts of information, and navigate cumbersome workflows that were leading to higher than desired drop-off rates during listing creation. Mobile usability was inconsistent, and many customers lacked confidence around pricing and vehicle data. At the same time, Autotrader needed to compete more effectively against dominant marketplace platforms while increasing private seller inventory and improving conversion performance. The commercial objectives were clear — increase listings, reduce time-to-list, lower abandonment rates, and create a simpler and more intuitive seller experience.
The platform also needed to integrate seamlessly into the broader Autotrader ecosystem while supporting future marketplace capabilities and scale.
Solution
Soda Digital engineered a mobile-first Progressive Web Application designed around a simple but powerful product goal: creating the fastest way to list a vehicle online. Built using Vue.js as a single-page application architecture, the platform delivered an app-like experience across mobile, tablet, and desktop devices while integrating deeply into the broader Autotrader platform ecosystem.
The experience focused heavily on reducing friction throughout the listing journey by simplifying interactions, automating vehicle data retrieval, and improving the usability of every step in the workflow. Rather than forcing users to manually enter complex vehicle information, Soda Digital implemented intelligent workflows that dramatically streamlined listing creation.
One of the platform’s most innovative features was the ability for users to create listings using vehicle number plate recognition. Users could either type or photograph a number plate, allowing the platform to retrieve vehicle information automatically through connected automotive data services.
The workflow integrated with external APIs and automotive classification systems to retrieve details such as make, model, variant, year, colour, and registration information. By removing the need for users to manually identify complex vehicle specifications, the platform reduced customer confusion and significantly improved the speed and simplicity of listing creation. Soda Digital also implemented OCR-based number plate recognition workflows, allowing users to capture vehicle details directly from their smartphone camera. These intelligent automation features transformed what had traditionally been a cumbersome process into a far more intuitive and mobile-friendly experience.
What clients say
It’s rare to find a team this capable who care about solving problems, not just delivering a project.
Shane Rigney
Head of Enterprise Solutions
Allens Linklaters