During a late October interview in his office at Cox Automotive's Atlanta headquarters, Jared Rowe was asked to name examples of innovation at dealerships that he finds particularly interesting.

Rowe quickly rattled off close to 10 dealers and dealer groups, before saying: “I’ll be honest with you, there’s so much interesting innovation going on at the retail level that it’s hard to put my finger on one, because they’re all really good operators who have figured out a niche.

“And they’re focused on that and exploiting that niche, all in very different ways,” he said.

Among those: the Schomp Automotive Group’s “One Price. One Person. One Hour.” model.  AutoNation Express. And many more.

While the “disruption” model certainly has impacted the way consumers shop for and buy used cars — heck, you can buy a car from a vending machine, thanks to Carvana — dealers aren’t simply getting out of the way.

For instance, Vroom — which is part of the online direct-to-consumer model — opened up its services to dealers last month and already had a couple handfuls of dealerships involved in beta testing.

And many dealers, it seems, are taking advantage of the available innovation that allows them to use disruptive technology to hone in on addressing specific needs.

“There’s a common thread … it’s really market-focused,” said Scott Ehlers, Cox Automotive Media Group’s vice president of product, told Auto Remarketing during the same interview with Rowe. “They have leveraged their strengths in the market where they’ve found a need.”

And sometimes it’s simply responding to a paradigm shift in the way consumers shop — for cars or otherwise.

One such dealer is North Carolina-based Bryan Honda, which used Cyber Monday as a launching point to begin selling cars in real time via Facebook.

Bryan Honda was launching the new sales tool by beta testing a few of its new and used models for sale.

The dealership has been working to stay at the forefront of tech evolution in auto sales, and Bryan Honda general manager Tim Roussell explained the store has taken cues from some of the online sales giants. Think Amazon shopping for cars.

“We’re always trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology,” he said. “We studied and modeled our dealership from companies like Amazon, Netflix and Zappos, and then we integrate our processes and systems to emulate them. You could call us Hondazon.”

Even former dealers are moving in this disrupter-type direction. Last year, Joe Neiman — who had been an Albany, N.Y.-area dealer — launched ACV Auctions, a mobile wholesale auction platform for dealers.

“We have created a mobile-based platform … that allows for new-car dealers to virtually instantly sell off their wholesale inventory to a ready marketplace of used-car dealer buyers,” Neiman said in a phone interview with Auto Remarketing last month.

As far as how it works, he added: “If you were a new-car dealership — let’s say you’re a Honda dealership — and you take in a 2001 Toyota Camry with 140,000 miles. It’s still a good car but clearly not something you’re going to retail.

“You go out to that car, you open our app, scan the barcode. It pulls up all the VIN data — we’re powered by Black Book data. And it walks you right through a simple condition report. So, you describe the car and you take photos — our app walks you right through what photos to take, so you end up taking between 20 and 30 photos of the car,” he added. “And when you’re done with that, you press send to auction. That process takes about five minutes.”

Once the dealer hits send to auction, Neiman said, smartphone push notifications are sent to ACV's network of dealers. Then there’s a live 20-minute online auction to sell the car.ACV’s buying dealers are primarily independents, but there are some franchised dealers and wholesales mixed in, as well. For now, only franchised dealers are allowed to be sellers.  

Going back to the industry at large, how well does all of this innovation and adapting to the disruption model actually work for dealers? Well, consider what AutoNation chief executive officer Mike Jackson had to say during his company’s third-quarter earnings call.

Jackson sparked several inquiries when he reported AutoNation generated more than 25 percent of its total vehicle sales in the third quarter from its own websites.

“I think that the third quarter is uncontestable proof that the strategy we’ve been talking about investing in has been validated and that we’re getting tremendous benefit from it,” Jackson said about projects that include AutoNation’s transaction website mentioned above.

“No question we’re a company that zigs when everybody else is zagging. I mean, that’s indisputable,” he continued.

“Here is the way I think about it. I came to conclusion several years ago that building a brand with genuine attributes was the only way to compete and win in this marketplace and not be disrupted and become a warehouse fulfillment center for others. That’s really where I didn’t want to end up. So, then when you say you have brand, the brand has to stand for something,” Jackson said.

Jackson emphasized that AutoNation’s websites are not just “informational; they’re transactional.”

He also acknowledged that it “took a lot of money and effort” for AutoNation to reach this stage.

And for the industry at large, it will also take a continued willingness to adapt and take advantage of disruption.

Editor's Note: Staff Writers Sarah Rubenoff and Nick Zulovich contributed to this report. Part I of the story can be found here.