FIFTY jobs are being created in Bournemouth after an online car sales platform was acquired by comparison site Carwow.

Wizzle, founded by local entrepreneur Sebastien Duval, has been rebranded Wizzle from Carwow.

Wizzle, headquartered at Dean Park Crescent, allows owners to sell their cars directly to professional dealers. It has doubled the number of cars listed on its platform at any one time, with the number of people listing used cars each day trebling.

The new jobs include lead handlers, account managers, operations and programming and software roles.

Mr Duval said: “As a local entrepreneur backed by local investors, creating new jobs is a brilliant feeling. The region has a lot of history in the motor industry and is a proven hub for the type of customer service and sales skills we’re looking for.

“Since we became part of Carwow, we’ve brought on record numbers of dealers looking to buy quality used cars and set new records for consumer listings on a weekly basis.

“We’ve more than doubled our typical stock volume to 4,000 cars on the site as more and more consumers discover our new way to sell their car.

“We’ve just signed a deal to upscale our office space, which will be the first official Carwow office in the area, so now we’re working on our target of recruiting 50 new team members as quickly as possible.

“The whole car market is going through a digital revolution and we’re right at the heart of that, meaning we can create super exciting career opportunities with all of the international reach and opportunities of the Carwow brand.”

The number of cars listed through Wizzle from Carwow has reached more than 600 a day, with more than 4,000 listings live on the site at any on time.

The value of cars listed on Wizzle from Carwow averages £14,000. Half the cars are premium brands such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes and the company says hundreds have fewer than 30,000 miles on the clock.

The platform has also seen a number of top end sports cars including Lamborghinis and Porsches sold to its network of dealer partners.

Mr Duval said: “Carwow has around 12 million users, most of whom have cars to sell or trade in when buying their new models, so we knew we could get more quality supply to meet the demand from UK car businesses.

“The impact of becoming part of Carwow was almost instantaneous and every day we’re making more improvements to create a better experience for consumers and dealers.

“The priority now is about getting our back-end systems working perfectly together, but we’ve definitely got one eye on international expansion to countries like Germany and Spain where Carwow already has fast growing new car businesses.”