Dealers, it seems, are exploring a bevy of alternative avenues to acquire used-vehicle inventory like dealer-to-dealer trade networks, online auctions and multiplatform remarketing, as well as websites where they can generate trades directly from consumers.

At the same time, more traditional routes like working the trade-in and the brick-and-mortar auction sales are a strong mainstay for dealers to find used cars — the ladder being particularly evident in numbers provided by the National Independent Automobile Dealers Associations’ 2014 Used Car Industry Report.

But the thread that has tied these used-car acquisition techniques together is the savvy use of technology — be it in the lanes at the auction, through an online remarketing portal or generating a trade from consumer — to make used-car acquisition more efficient for the dealer.

And perhaps it’s no coincidence this run-up in acquisition ingenuity from dealers, auctions and third-party providers has occurred at a time where used-car supply has gone through sloping ebbs and flows stemming from the drought of new-car sales in the recent recession and the subsequent onslaught of success in both the new- and used-car markets.

In other words, the industry as a whole responded to the supply waves by ratcheting up innovation.

Where the Used Inventory is Being Found

Just five years ago, 14 percent of auction sales were Internet-based, meaning they were done either by simulcasting or completely online. In 2013, that share shot up to 17.4 percent.

Those numbers were included in the 2013 National Auto Auction Association Annual Review, which accompanies the NIADA report mentioned above.

NAAA indicates that online-only auction sales have seen particularly strong growth in the last five years, climbing from a 2.7 percent share in 2009 to a 4.7 percent share in 2013.

Simultaneously, more than 92 percent of respondents in the latest NIADA Member Survey say they turn to the auction to find inventory, while more than half of NIADA members surveyed mentioned other dealers (53 percent) as an inventory source, a third cited wholesalers (32.4 percent), more than a quarter go online to find used cars (28.7 percent) and 58.4 percent pointed to other measures.

(Respondents could choose more than one answer, so numbers add up to more than 100 percent).

More than 39 percent of respondents in the same NIADA Member Survey say they go to the auction one to four times per month and over a third (33.6 percent) go to an auction eight or more times a month.  Roughly a fifth (19.5 percent) say they attend the auction five to seven times a month and less than 8 percent don’t go to the auction.

On the franchised dealer side, the NADA DATA 2014 report from the National Automobile Dealers Association indicated that among used cars retailed by dealers last year, 41 percent were sourced from a trade-in on a new vehicle. Twenty-five percent were sourced via trade-in on a used car, and another 25 percent were bought at auction. Five percent were street purchases, and 3 percent fell into the “other” category.

For more details on how dealers are using technological advancements to shore up their used-car supplies, stay tuned to the Aug. 15 edition of Auto Remarketing. The digital version of this magazine is set to hit email inboxes Tuesday and can also be found at digital.autoremarketing.com.