A message from Sam Zales, President and COO
As CarGurus navigates the global health crisis, we continue to evaluate the impact on our employees, the economy, the auto industry, consumer spending, dealerships, and ultimately, our business. In March, we took swift, decisive action to support our dealers through this crisis. We were the first major online automotive marketplace in the U.S., UK, and Canada to announce billings relief with our 50% fee reduction for April and May. And we are committed to continuing to drive leads across our marketplaces and provide services to help dealers navigate this crisis and position themselves to rebound quickly as business resumes.
Clearly, our discounting program for dealers will result in us generating less revenue in the near term. Today, we announced a range of cost-cutting measures we are taking in response so that we can emerge as an even stronger company and continue to be the best partner to you, our dealers. Unfortunately, this included the painful decision to reduce our global workforce by 13%. For those of you that have recently had to furlough or reduce staff as a result of COVID-19, I am sure you can relate to how difficult this decision was for us. We are sad to part ways with a group of incredibly talented colleagues, and I will be forever grateful for their contributions. You can read more about this announcement in this message I sent to our employees.
Certainly, these are challenging times for our employees, our dealers, and our business. But even in the face of these challenges, we believe that as the market leader, we are uniquely positioned in the industry to help dealers manage through this crisis and emerge stronger as well. Our US audience is unmatched, and we believe we provide dealers with the highest-ROI, most efficient customer acquisition channels across our marketplace and other high quality digital marketing tools. Our data-driven approach to consumer traffic acquisition allows us to maximize the efficiency of our marketing spend and support a more rapid recovery for our dealers. We will also continue to invest in and roll out our product portfolio to help dealers reach more shoppers and sell more cars, including our recent launch of our contactless shopping features. And we believe our value proposition as the most trusted, transparent automotive marketplace has never been more relevant.
In talking to our dealer partners in these last few weeks, I am impressed and inspired by the resilience I see in the face of these unprecedented business challenges. Thank you for your continued partnership.
Sam Zales
Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
All statements contained in this blog posting other than statements of historical facts, including, without limitation, statements regarding: our future financial and business performance; our market positioning; our ability to help our dealer customers; the value proposition of our products; our investments in and the success of new products and features; and other statements regarding our plans, prospects and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause them to differ materially from actual results. Information concerning those risks is available in the “Risk Factors” section of our Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed on February 14, 2020 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law.