carsales plans in-site new car ordering channel as it pitches brands and dealers at Open House '27

Ordering directly on carsales

carsales is working towards letting new car buyers place an order on its site, positioning itself to manufacturers and dealers as a new retail channel. AutoTalk Australia reported the plan from the carsales mediahouse Open House '27 event in Sydney, where the company also launched Iggy, an AI platform for advertisers built into its Ignition self-serve system. ¹

The company showed how a future version of carsales could combine personalised search, editorial content, vehicle configuration and links to retailers, with AI-powered shopping tools helping buyers find and configure vehicles. AutoTalk Australia noted that carsales has not given a timeline for the ordering function. ¹

carsales head of consumer product Ollie Nugent told the event the aim was to bring more of the new car journey into one place. "It's about giving consumers choice in how far they want to take the journey on carsales, whether that's researching, enquiring, booking a test drive, or even progressing through to placing an order," Nugent said, according to AutoTalk Australia's coverage. ¹

What it means for dealers and OEMs

"For dealers, this could create further opportunities to connect with more informed, purchase-ready buyers. For OEMs, it opens up the potential for a new retail channel that brings them even closer to consumers as they move towards a decision," Nugent said, as reported by AutoTalk Australia. ¹

carsales says 60 per cent of car intenders on its site are already considering a new vehicle, and that new car buying journeys can now run for up to six months. These company figures were presented at Open House '27 and reported by AutoTalk Australia. ¹

A crowded market and falling loyalty

The ordering pitch was framed against market conditions carsales set out at the event: 79 brands are now selling cars in Australia, and 54 models on sale did not exist here a year ago, according to AutoTalk Australia's report of the presentation. ¹

carsales' presentation also put the share of owners planning to stay with their current brand at 23 per cent, which the company says is the lowest it has recorded. "More brands are competing for Australian car buyers than ever before, and consumers are less loyal than we've ever measured," carsales general manager of advertising Nicholas Bailly said, per AutoTalk Australia. "Every one of those purchase decisions gets made somewhere. Our commitment is to help automotive brands influence those decisions in the place people already trust to find their next car." ¹

Iggy: AI for advertisers

Iggy, launched at the same event, uses AI agents covering audiences, inventory, competitors, campaigns, measurement and creative. Marketers can ask questions in plain language and act on the answers without switching between tools, according to AutoTalk Australia's report. ¹

carsales says Iggy draws on more than 16 million logged-in carsales members, three billion automotive shopping signals each quarter, VIN-level inventory data and transaction signals. "The industry doesn't have a data problem, it has a connection problem," carsales general manager of media product and technology Stephen Kyefulumya said, as reported by AutoTalk Australia. "With Iggy, we're using agentic AI on Australia's largest automotive data set, delivering automation with intelligence to help brands connect marketing activity to real commercial outcomes." ¹

Nexgate builds out the dealer offering

The ordering vision follows the September 2026 launch of Nexgate, a SaaS platform carsales built in-house for dealerships and OEM retail teams. According to Mediaweek, Nexgate combines vehicle sourcing, inventory management, pricing and customer engagement in one system, using carsales' first-party market data and AI to recommend actions based on buyer activity. ⁴

AutoTalk Australia reported that every dealer partner gets access to the full Nexgate platform at launch, but only for an initial three-month period; after that, the features available to each dealer reflect their existing carsales subscriptions. Product images supplied with the launch showed an AI prompt field offering queries such as the most searched vehicles in a dealer's state and worst performing published cars in a dealership, with a disclaimer that AI may make mistakes. ³

AutoTalk Australia also reported that Nexgate images show a listing distribution panel offering carsales, the dealer's own website, Autotrader and Gumtree as destinations; Autotrader and Gumtree are owned by The Market Herald, carsales' largest domestic competitor in Australian automotive classifieds. carsales says Nexgate is built on the largest auto category audience each month, citing Ipsos iris data from January 2026. ³

carsales chief executive Craig Fraser said at the Nexgate launch, as reported by Mediaweek, that the platform was developed to help dealerships use information across their businesses more efficiently. "Time is one of the most valuable resources in any dealership. Teams have more information available to them than ever before, but turning that into confident decisions quickly isn't easy," Fraser said. "The goal isn't more information; it's knowing the next best move." ⁴

Nexgate was first revealed at the 2026 Australian Automotive Dealer Association Convention and is launching with digital and social activity plus direct-to-dealership activations around Australia, Mediaweek reported. carsales says it will introduce additional Nexgate capabilities over coming months, and the platform sits alongside dealership systems rather than replacing them. ⁴³

Where the ordering plan sits

AutoTalk Australia reported that Open House '26 last year introduced the One Platform. Every Advantage. strategy that this year's event builds on, and that Open House '27 was moving to Melbourne the following week. Within that framework, the demonstrated buyer journey - personalised search through to configuration and ordering - remains a company vision without a confirmed release date. ¹

carsales' broader technology push extends beyond the marketplace itself. The company's dealer business pages describe Nexgate as bringing inventory management, customer engagement and dealership workflows together, and note that subscribers receive access to AutoGate, its online prospect and inventory management system that feeds listings to the network and third-party destinations. This positions the prospective consumer-facing ordering function as an extension of an established strategy of deepening carsales' role in both buying and selling workflows. ²¹