The trade-in decision
Every Canadian dealer knows the options on a trade-in: retail it, run it through a local auction, or sell it to an exporter. Exporters often pay the best number, and plenty of dealers already take it.
But an exporter's number has their profit built in. When the car sells in the US for more than the dealer was paid, the exporter keeps the difference. Most dealers never see what their car brought south of the border, so they never know how much they left on the table.
Instant Offer gives you a firm export number up front, and if the car sells in the US for more, the difference comes back to you. Now Instant Offer is open to every Canadian franchise dealer.
How it works
- Send us the vehicle. Enter the VIN and odometer.
- Get an offer right away. You get a firm CAD number in seconds, good for 7 days.
- Accept and we pick it up. We advance your funds before pickup. Signal handles the border, compliance, transport and the sale in the US.
- Share in the upside. If the car sells in the US for more than your offer, you get the difference, less our fees. We pay it out monthly.
In short: know what you get by export, and keep the upside if they sell for more.
Why we can do this now
The biggest source of export risk was time. A vehicle crossing into the US sits in an NHTSA hold for up to 30 days before it can be sold, and most vehicles used to sit the full 30. The longer a car waits, the more the market can move against it, so nobody could commit to a firm price up front.
Since May, two-thirds of the vehicles we have imported have cleared that hold in under a week. A full export, from pickup to sale in the US, can now take as little as two weeks. We covered what changed in NHTSA's 30-Day Hold Now Often Clears in Under a Week.
Shorter time means less risk, and less risk means we can put a real number on your car the day you ask.
What we learned in testing
We started testing Instant Offer in June with 3 dealers in Ontario. Dealers told other dealers, and word of mouth alone took it to close to 100 dealerships. Today we put tens of thousands of instant offers on vehicles every month, and it's still growing fast.
That growth told us more than any survey could. Used car managers are busy and skeptical, and they don't pass along tools that waste their time. They passed this one along because it gave them a firm export number on the spot, without the wait.
We also learned something about the upside. In the first few months, there wasn't any to pay out. Our offers came in high, which left little room above them, and the summer market was soft, especially for F-150s in July and August. A month with no upside meant the dealer had already been paid the right number.
September was different. Those vehicles sold for more, and the first upside checks are going out this month.
Now we're opening it up to dealers across Canada.
We're also expanding what Instant Offer covers. As of today, every offer is priced against a much larger set of recent US wholesale sales. About 20% more trades now get an instant number, and that number tracks more closely to what the car will bring in the US.
Who it's for
Instant Offer is built for Canadian franchise dealers with trade-ins they would otherwise wholesale locally. If you're a used car manager, GSM or dealer principal, you can use it today.
Signal has exported vehicles for Canadian dealers since 2017. Instant Offer makes that the easy call on any eligible trade, and gives you the upside without the risk.
