The UAE boasts one of the most digitally mature consumer markets in the region, yet high-value purchases, particularly in the pre-owned automotive sector, have historically relied on physical reassurance. For consumers, the transition from online browsing to final purchase has traditionally been bottlenecked by a single, critical variable: the need to see, touch, and verify the vehicle in person.
When shifting market conditions restricted mobility, CARS24 chose not to wait for consumers to return to the showroom. Instead, they took the showroom to the consumer. Driven by real-time data signals that showed customer intent remained high despite logistical hurdles, the digital automotive platform conceptualised, developed, and deployed its Live Video Test Drive feature in less than 48 hours.
Far from a mere gimmick or over-engineered virtual reality tool, the feature tackles the core barrier of high-value e-commerce head-on: uncertainty. By shifting control back to the consumer, allowing them to direct a live expert to inspect everything from under-seat spacing to engine sounds in real time, CARS24 has fundamentally compressed the traditional car-buying journey. The results speak for themselves, with fully online sales now organically accounting for 10% of the brand’s UAE volume.
Abhinav Gupta, CEO of CARS24, shares insights on the shifting psychology of the modern automotive buyer, and why the future of retail belongs to those who build explicitly for consumer trust.
Interview Excerpts
What inspired Cars24 to introduce a live video test drive experience in the UAE market?
It started with something we noticed in the data. Even as conditions in the region shifted and stepping out became harder, people were still browsing cars on our platform. Still shortlisting. Still comparing. The intent hadn’t gone anywhere. But buying a car has always depended on one specific step: going to see it. And that step was getting harder. So the question was simple. If customers are ready but the process requires them to do something they can’t easily do right now, what do we change? Live Video Test Drive came from that. A customer opens the app, connects with a Cars24 expert on a live video call, and walks through any car on the platform in real time. They lead the conversation. They decide what to look at, what to ask about. It’s their experience. We weren’t chasing a feature. We were responding to a very specific constraint, in a very specific moment.
How was this digital feature conceptualised and developed in under 48 hours?
The speed was a function of clarity, not shortcuts. When you know exactly what problem you’re solving and you’re not trying to over engineer the solution, teams can move very quickly. The product and tech teams didn’t build this in isolation. They were looking at the same customer data the rest of us were. The signals were obvious. So when the decision was made to act, there wasn’t a long alignment process. Everyone understood the problem and the scope was deliberately kept tight: a live, interactive video call between a customer and an expert, focused on evaluation, not a virtual showroom or an AR experience.
What made the 48 hours possible is something we’ve been investing in for much longer: a culture where the team feels ownership over customer problems and the freedom to move on them quickly.
What has early customer response revealed about trust and convenience in online car buying?
What I didn’t expect was how quickly this clicked with customers. We designed it as an evaluation tool, a way for people to shortlist cars from home before committing to a physical test drive. And many do use it that way. But a meaningful number of customers are going further. They’re making their purchase decision right there on the call. That surprised us. And it tells us something important. Trust in online car buying isn’t just about certifications and inspection reports on a listing page, though those are essential. It’s about giving people the ability to verify things for themselves, in real time, at their own pace. When someone asks our expert to pop the boot, check under the seats, run the AC, they’re building their own confidence. No amount of static content replicates that. To put it in perspective, 10% of our UAE sales are now fully online. That’s not a target we set. It’s a pattern that emerged as customers became more comfortable completing the entire journey digitally. Convenience plays a role, but what’s really driving it is that people feel in control.
How is live video interaction changing the way consumers make high-value vehicle purchase decisions?
People have always assumed that online browsing and in-person visits are two separate, sequential steps. Customers are showing us they don’t think about it that way. They’re willing to compress that journey significantly when they feel they have enough information and enough trust in the process to move forward. Live video doesn’t replace the physical experience. Our home test drive service remains important. But what live video does is move the evaluation stage forward. Customers are arriving at the physical test drive, when they choose to do one, with a much clearer sense of what they want. In many cases, they’ve already narrowed down to one or two cars. For high value purchases, the real barrier has always been uncertainty, not distance or logistics.
If you address that uncertainty through a genuine, interactive experience where the customer is leading the conversation, the channel becomes secondary. What matters is whether the person feels equipped to make a confident decision.
What does this innovation signal for the future of used-car retail and digital automotive experiences in the UAE?
The future of used car retail in this market will be decided by whoever takes trust most seriously. The UAE has one of the most digitally mature consumer bases in the region. People here are comfortable making significant decisions online, but only when the experience earns that trust. That’s a high bar, and it should be. For us, Live Video Test Drive isn’t a standalone feature. It sits alongside 150+ quality checks, a 30 day return policy, a price match guarantee, and a lifetime warranty. Each of those exists to address a different layer of the trust equation. The live video component fills a specific gap that existed between browsing a listing and physically seeing the car. What I think this signals more broadly is that the companies that will shape used car retail in this market are not necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated technology. They’ll be the ones who pay close attention to what’s making customers hesitate, and build specifically for that. The situation around us keeps changing. The question stays the same: how do we make it easier for people to move forward?