Combined Auction Platform: The Efficient Road to Profitability

The automotive auction and remarketing industry has evolved from strictly physical to physical, with digital capabilities, to exclusively digital. The opportunity to bring all markets together in one place feels like the right solution for all customers in this industry.

Now more than ever, car dealers are challenged to secure the inventory that attracts customers and ensures the viability of the dealership.

The savviest dealers are keeping their ears to the ground as they search for methods that will ensure the vehicles they acquire from auction move quickly and generate a strong financial return. It is incumbent upon every dealership manager and owner to explore the options and put into play the modern technologies and methodologies that will ensure their continued survival and success. Simultaneously, they need to feel confident that a consumer trade will quickly be turned into a frontline-ready piece or will attract a sufficient number of wholesale buyers.

A combined auction platform – which enables dealers to concurrently buy or sell a vehicle through traditional in-person events as well as through digital-only sales – is the solution the industry has been waiting for.

Combined auctions deliver a single marketplace that leverages a mix of land, logistics and technology, providing dealers with the critical information and tools they are familiar with, while allowing them to quickly adapt and move inventory, either virtually or in person. This “best of both worlds” scenario equips dealers with essential information, such as:

Combined auctions provide dealers with an opportunity to significantly extend their searches to a much larger geographic region in a fraction of the time than in-person local auctions. Because in-person auctions take time, effort and expense to attend, busy dealers who may have staffing shortages or schedule conflicts can rest more easily knowing their inventory managers, in effect can be in two places at once. Two significant benefits result:

The result is live access to both digital and physical auctions with the use of a platform that is convenient, connected and consistent.

Convenience

Combined auctions provide incomparable convenience, allowing dealers to both buy and sell on their own terms. It eliminates the need for dealers to choose between digital and physical options, ultimately exposing their inventory to more potential buyers and providing access to more units than traditional auctions.

Industry-leading combined auctions include myriad features, most notably the combination of physical and digital inventory, customized filters that save time by making quick work of narrowing searches, and the flexibility to sell wholesale units both digitally and in person.

Connected

Combining in-person traditional auctions with a technical option allows dealers to buy and sell online or “in lane” with access beyond their local geography, all in one place. This allows them to ask auction staff about vehicles on the block, view both audio and video for physical auctions, and gain access to run lists for vehicles at physical auctions.

Lisa Scott-9412v2

Consistent

This combined format enables dealers to experience the same momentum, energy and urgency of a live auction with both physical and digital vehicles running simultaneously. They also allow users to benefit from an unparalleled level of functionality that enables dealers to work from one single list and gain access to consistent condition reports. Combined auctions allow for seamless planning and prepping with meticulous event timelines and offer both starting and ending times that work within dealers’ time windows. Combined auction platforms provide dealers with fluid information and a best-of-all-worlds opportunity to maximize their effectiveness from both the acquisition and selling perspectives. They offer a competitive edge in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Jai Macker-8588v2

Lisa Scott (pictured, above left) is president and Jai Macker (pictured, left) is chief product officer of EBlock, an online vehicle auction platform.