ACV Auctions · Buyer Experience
ACV Drops
& My Buy Plan
From 341,587 listings to the one that fits. A personalized buy plan that does the navigating — so dealers stop guessing and start landing the cars that move.
The concept film — "Drop it like it's hot." How Drops turns 341k listings into a buy plan a dealer can actually act on.
The opportunity
The funnel is wide. The middle is leaking.
The friction isn't supply or demand — it's navigation. Buyers can't find their next car among 341k options.
Buyer reality
Today the buyer's day looks like this.
- Browse, then guess. No system memory of what fits this dealership's lot, market, or budget.
- Miss the moments. The right car comes up while they're in inventory search instead of on it.
- Bid blind. No signal that a vehicle matches their plan or that a teammate is already on it.
- Repeat tomorrow. The system never gets smarter from yesterday's wins or losses.
The product asks the buyer to do all the work the platform should be doing.
Research · Generative
We sat with the dealers who live in the feed.
Before pitching a buy plan, I led the design on a generative study with eight dealers — from one-a-month independents to 500+/year franchise buyers — to learn how they actually shop a marketplace this big: how they search, what they save, when they bid, and where the feed lets them down.
Dealers already build a buy plan — by hand.
Nearly every buyer rebuilt the same plan out of saved searches, watchlists, and memory. The parameters they saved most weren't random — they were a buy plan waiting for a system to own it.
The SRP is a control panel, not a decision.
Dealers scroll the feed to spot prospects and watch timers and statuses — but 88% only place a bid after opening the full vehicle page. They want the feed to pre-qualify, not just list.
Saved Search is the closest thing to a plan — and it’s blunt.
It floods them with launch alerts and can’t filter by condition, so many just switch notifications off — and miss the cars they actually wanted.
“Add a filter for time left in the auction. With so many 2-hour auctions running, it’s easy to miss a 20-minute auction at the top of the page.”Nate · Franchise buyer
They buy by “core” vs. “off-brand.”
Every dealer sorts the whole marketplace into their staple brands and the opportunistic off-brands they’ll dabble in — a personal buy plan they rebuild from scratch every morning.
They described Drops before we built it.
Asked what would help most, one buyer sketched the product almost exactly: a weekly email of cars launching that match my advanced-filter criteria. The buy-plan idea didn’t come from a strategy deck — it came from the buyers themselves.
The dealers were already building a buy plan by hand. Drops makes it the platform’s job.
Strategy
Four pillars. One personalized buy plan.
Personalize
A taste profile built from each buyer's habits — what they bid, win, pass on, watch — keyed to dealership, market and budget.
Explain
Every recommendation shows a "Why it fits" rationale — the buyer sees what ACV inferred and decides whether to trust it.
Customize
The buyer can override the algorithm — tighten or loosen any factor and watch matches shift in real time.
Coordinate
Team activity, notes and chat in-context so dealership groups stop bidding against themselves.
Pillar 01 · Personalize
The home page is the buy plan.
- Weekly plan keyed to dealership, market and saved preferences
- Day-by-day forecast — today's, tomorrow's, and the week's picks
- Active filters surfaced as chips, editable in one tap
- Replaces the search box as the starting point — no more cold start
Pillar 02 · Explain
"Why it fits" — on every card.
- Each card shows the rationale: buy band, mileage profile, seller history, lot gap
- Match strength as a percentage — clear weighting, not a black box
- The buyer can disagree and say why — feedback retunes the profile
- Builds trust before it asks for a bid
Pillar 03 · Customize
Override the algorithm. In one panel.
- Presets: Balanced, Aggressive, Conservative, Top sellers only
- Vehicles, condition, pricing, logistics, bidding rules, alerts — every dial in one place
- Live footer: matches this week, avg match price, budget consumption
- Changes apply immediately — the new plan previews before you save
Pillar 04 · Coordinate
The team's activity, in-context.
- Active Buying — your live bids, with current price and heat
- Group Activity — teammates' bids, wins, notes and watchlist adds
- Notes & team chat tied to the vehicle, not a side channel
The hook · Drops
Live drops turn browsing into showing up.
- Timed, curated drop events surface the week's strongest matches at once
- "Just outside your buy box, but moving" — adjacents that expand wallet without losing relevance
- Each strip is its own funnel — measurable independently
- Directly attacks the 43% of inventory that doesn't move
Modeled impact
What "good" looks like in four quarters.
| Metric | Today | Target | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell-through | 57% | 65% | +8 pts |
| Listing-to-sale conversion | 1.8% | 2.5% | +39% |
| Digital units sold (quarterly) | 6,240 | 8,500 | +2,260 |
| Time to first bid (median) | baseline | −40% | faster |
| Repeat-buyer rate (4+ wk) | baseline | +15 pts | stickier |
Even hitting half of the modeled lift moves +1,100 incremental units per quarter and clears ~27,000 more listings from inventory drag.
The buy plan does the navigating.
The buyer does the buying — and tells us when we're wrong.