Responding to a major business issue in the vehicle remarketing industry, Auto Auction Services Corp. (AASC) announced its proposal to meet the growing demand of consignors and auctions with its online Multi-Listing Platform. Although widely used in the real estate and travel industries for years, such an Internet sales tool is currently unavailable in automotive wholesale remarketing.
AASC Chief Executive Officer Mike Broe said that, given the company’s experience in developing Web-based solutions that enhance the vehicle remarketing process, addressing the need for an online platform that enables simultaneous listings on multiple online auctions is the natural next step.
“Since our founding in 1997, we’ve been dedicated to helping the remarketing industry succeed through the application of new technologies and focused on delivering results that improve business practices for the benefit of all,” he noted. “Our Multi-Listing Platform will offer the advantages of consolidating data for better information sharing, simplifying the listing and search processes for greater efficiency, and reaching the broadest market available to maximize resale prices.”
Broe explained that AASC’s proposal would employ hub technology to create a single, common interface allowing the simultaneous, cross-listing of vehicles on multiple, online platforms to facilitate sales activity. Any participating online platforms would be connected by this central portal, permitting them to send and receive digital photos, inspection reports, floor prices and a variety of other information.
A major feature of AASC’s Multi-Listing Platform would be real-time, live bidding. “This allows for the instantaneous exchange of data as it is happening, so bidding received on one platform is communicated as it comes in to the hub, which immediately transmits that information to update all the other platforms where that vehicle is listed,” Broe said.
AASC already supplies similar, one-stop-shop software tools to the industry, including the widely-adopted AutoIMS.com. As an industry standard partner, this web-based inventory management system provides a single point of entry through a central platform for auctions, consignors of all types, repo agents, and others who work in remarketing to exchange vehicle data efficiently, cost-effectively, and securely.
“We bring advanced technology to the remarketing process, letting systems do what they do best — freeing people to focus on higher value business activities,” Broe said. “Online vehicle portfolio management and sales are here and many in the industry feel it’s time to move forward to the next level. We recognize this is where remarketing is headed and, based on the underlying trust we’ve built throughout the industry, we’re prepared to lead it into the future.”
Indeed, online multi-selling platforms were the subject of two seminars earlier this year: the 2013 International Automotive Remarketers Alliance (IARA) Spring Roundtable and the 2013 Conference of Automotive Remarketing (CAR). Anticipating the coming change in how vehicles are remarketed, the IARA Standards Committee has issued a white paper on the topic, suggesting that to be successful, industry standards for online multi-selling platforms must be developed and adopted.
Frank Hackett, chief executive officer of the National Auto Auction Association, which co-sponsors CAR, agrees. “NAAA has an ongoing initiative to standardize our industry, which includes creating uniform Electronic Condition Reports, a universal Arbitration Policy and a National Certification program,” he said. “So working together to set general principles and practices for online multi-selling platforms would just be one more way to ensure trust, enhance service and enrich customer satisfaction.”
Hackett added that NAAA supports the united efforts of the industry to develop a multiple online sales platform and encourages AASC to meet the challenge with its Multi-Listing Platform. “We see this technology as evolutionary — not revolutionary — and it represents progress that will be of great benefit to everyone.”
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