You compare three transport quotes for the same route and pick the cheapest one. That makes sense, because the transport price is right there on the invoice. But the days the car then loses, waiting to be scheduled or on the road, don't appear on that invoice anywhere. And those days often cost more than the difference between the cheapest and the fastest quote.
In a used car market that keeps getting busier and more transparent, that's not a theoretical point. It's the difference between keeping your margin and losing it to a car that spent just a bit too long in transit.
Why the used car market keeps getting busier and more competitive
The used car market keeps moving across Europe, though not in the same way everywhere. In Germany, more than 6.5 million cars changed hands in 2025, according to figures from the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, with a strong finish in December. In France, the used car market held nearly steady at 5.4 million transactions, and according to market researcher AAA Data, it's absorbing the weakness in new car sales: 78% of younger used cars (up to 5 years old) are now sold through professionals. The Netherlands set a record in 2025 with 2.1 million used cars sold, according to BOVAG.
More volume doesn't automatically mean more margin — if anything, the opposite. In the Netherlands, average profit per dealership fell by almost a quarter in the first quarter of 2026: from €69,117 to €52,646. In Germany, the average dealer revenue margin now sits around 1.1%, down again from the year before, despite 4.5% more revenue. In France, the picture is sharper still: the average profitability of dealer networks dropped to around 0.08% in 2025, against 0.46% a year earlier, the sixth year in a row that profitability has declined. Three markets, the same pattern: more cars changing hands, less margin per car. At returns that low, a logistics delay doesn't need to cost hundreds of euros per car to matter. Across a whole fleet, every avoidable day adds up.
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More volume, less margin Used car market DE, FR and NL, 2025 — the same pattern in three different markets Used car transactions in millions, 2025 — bar height is proportional to the number
Margin pressure on dealers DE and FR on the same scale (revenue margin); NL shown separately, since that figure measures something else
Germany France Netherlands Sources: Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, AAA Data, BOVAG, Autohaus.de / RAW-Partner, Journal de l'Automobile. The DE and FR figures are both a revenue margin percentage and therefore comparable with each other; the NL figure is a percentage decline in average profit per dealership and measures something else — hence the separate display rather than a third bar on the same scale. |
That doesn't mean the market grows the same way everywhere in Europe. Growth differs by country and by segment: where one market grows mainly in volume, margin comes under pressure in another. What does show up everywhere is that dealers and fleet owners increasingly think in terms of turnover speed, not just individual transactions. A car that moves faster from purchase to sale is a car that's exposed for less time to market swings you can't control.
The transport price is on the invoice. The cost of waiting isn't.
A transport quote is a specific amount. The cost of waiting isn't. It's spread across financing, storage and lost selling days, which makes it easy to miss even though it's just as real.
What one extra day of standing still really costs
A simple calculation makes this concrete. A €25,000 car, financed at 3.6% a year, costs you roughly €2.47 in capital charges for every day it stands still. With 500 cars in stock, that's €1,233 a day for the whole inventory. Five avoidable days across those 500 cars add up to more than €6,000 in financing costs alone. And that's still the floor: falling market prices, storage costs, missed sales opportunities and any repricing aren't included.
This is an illustrative example, not a universal benchmark. But it shows why a few days faster or slower in that chain matters, even if no one ever sees that amount on an invoice.
From compound to showroom floor: where the time disappears
That standstill rarely happens on the road. It happens on the compound: locating the right vehicle, administrative release, and inspection and reconditioning capacity that gets overloaded at peak times. We covered the invisible bottleneck in remarketing and the strategic hub of vehicle logistics before. The drive itself is usually not the problem. What happens before it is.
Why the cheapest transport quote can be the most expensive choice
That raises an awkward contradiction: waiting is expensive, yet we often still choose on transport price. The explanation is that cost does matter, just not in the way we usually look at it.
The ECG signal: cost is the top concern again in 2026
Industry association ECG surveyed carriers and shippers in European vehicle logistics on exactly this. The result: in 2024, capacity was still the sector's biggest concern, with cost in second place. In 2026, those positions have swapped. Cost now ranks first. That's a signal you can't ignore, and it doesn't mean speed matters less. It means the question is framed wrong if you treat price and speed as opposites.
Total cost to sale, not transport price alone
The question that actually counts isn't "what does this transport cost" but "what does it cost to get this car ready for sale". That's the transport price plus financing, plus storage, plus the risk of value loss, plus the selling days you miss while the car is still in transit. A cheap quote that takes three days longer is rarely the cheapest option once you count it that way.
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The transport price is the tip of the iceberg Total cost to sale — what you see upfront vs. what you only feel afterwards
Illustrative: as with an iceberg, the visible part (transport price) is small compared to what stays underwater — the four other cost components combined. The heights illustrate the idea, not an exactly measured ratio. See the calculation above (€25,000 car, 3.6% financing) for a concrete figure behind the financing block. |
The real bottleneck sits in the coordination before the drive
A transporter can only cover a limited number of kilometres a day, however you plan it. The biggest time gains usually sit before the drive, in everything that happens ahead of departure.
The same ECG survey confirms it. Carriers name short scheduling windows and penalties for missed appointments as their biggest lead time concern, more so than two years ago. Shippers complain mostly about unclear delivery times. And operationally, too many loading and unloading points and frequent changes remain the biggest bottleneck. None of those issues sit in the driving time itself. They sit in the coordination beforehand: matching, documentation, waiting time at pick-up and transfer points.
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The biggest time gain sits before the drive, not in the drive itself From purchase to sale — an illustrative breakdown of lead time → Flow of time
Illustrative: the segment widths show the core message from the ECG signals — the bottleneck typically sits before and after the drive, not in the drive itself — this is not a measured average lead time per stage. |
That's exactly where spotfilling makes a difference. Instead of booking a fixed slot on a transporter, your vehicle joins a route that already exists. You don't wait until there's enough volume for a dedicated trip, and the carrier doesn't drive half empty. Add real-time visibility into status and planning, and the waiting time that used to sit hidden between auction, compound and delivery becomes visible, and therefore manageable. We wrote earlier about how dwell time is a hidden cost in remarketing, and about how dealer groups are increasingly digitising transport management to speed up exactly this kind of coordination.
What this means for car dealers, platforms and fleet owners
In practice, this translates into three metrics that say more than the transport price alone:
- Time between purchase and pick-up. The time before a purchased vehicle is actually collected.
- Time between pick-up and sale-ready. The number of days between delivery and the moment the car is actually listed in the showroom or online.
- Total lead time to sale. The total number of days between purchase and sale, and where in that chain most of the time is hidden.
Anyone with a clear view of these three points can steer on what a vehicle actually costs until it's sold. The transport invoice alone is no longer the starting point.
Frequently asked questions
What is dwell time in car transport?
Dwell time is the time between the moment a vehicle becomes administratively available (for example after an auction sale) and the moment it physically leaves the compound. It's not the same as delivery time to the end customer. Dwell time sits before transport, not within it.
How does spotfilling shorten lead time?
Spotfilling combines your shipment with a route that already exists, instead of waiting until there's enough volume for a dedicated trip. That means a vehicle gets scheduled sooner, and the carrier doesn't have to drive half empty.
Is transport price or transport speed more important for your margin?
Neither one on its own. The question that matters is what a vehicle costs in total until it's sold: transport price plus financing, storage, value risk and lost selling days. A cheap quote that extends lead time is rarely the cheapest choice once you count it that way.
Organise speed, don't leave it to chance
The transport invoice is visible. The cost of waiting isn't, but it counts just as much. Anyone who wants control over margin in a market that keeps getting busier and more transparent needs to look at the whole road from purchase to sale, not just the price per trip. For car dealers and fleet owners working with TransConnect, that starts with visibility into where the time is disappearing along that road.
