TORRANCE, Calif. -

Because of more than two years of success remarketing vehicles online, Toyota Financial Services told Auto Remarketing Friday that it’s committed to pushing its offerings to the Internet before they go down physical auctions lanes.

Mike Reid, national manager of remarketing at Toyota Financial Services, said late last week, “Everything we have a title on will go in the weekend space first. If it doesn’t sell in that environment, then we’ll run it in the physical lane.”

Reid recapped that for the past two and a half years, TFS has conducted weekend online sales with partners ADESA and Manheim, beginning at 8 p.m. EST Fridays and ending at 2 p.m. EST Mondays.

“We’re going to be committed to putting cars on the Internet first because we realize that by putting cars in this weekend sale environment, we’re attracting more buyers, and we’re getting more bids per vehicle sold,” Reid explained to Auto Remarketing.

“Also we’ve heard a lot of feedback from dealers that it’s very efficient for us to offer vehicles online, saving expense for the dealers from having to go to physical auctions and pick vehicles up or actually attend those sales,” he continued.

“It’s saving the company an expense, too, of offering those vehicles in the Internet space and also having the secondary sale being a lane sale,” Reid added.

TFS’ decision doesn’t change how Toyota’s closed upstream remarketing platform will operate for the brand’s franchised dealers. Reid indicated all off-lease and used units still will go through Toyota Dealer Direct.

“Our franchise dealers still have the option of buying those vehicles in an exclusive, closed sale environment,” Reid emphasized. “Once those vehicles pass out of that environment, we’ll offer those vehicles in the weekend space at Manheim and ADESA in an open-sale environment.”

The combination of changing dealer behavior and market conditions pushed TFS to leverage its online capability.

“We’ve seen positive gains across the board just by putting cars on the weekend sale,” Reid shared.

“Two, three years ago when the economy took a turn for the worse, we saw a lot of dealers leave the marketplace and a lot of dealers had additional responsibilities at their stores, which meant they couldn’t make it to all of the auctions where we offer vehicles,” he recollected.

“At that time, we had a lot of inventory we had to move, so we figured the Internet would be the best place to offer vehicles by placing images and condition reports online and allowing dealers to multi-task at their stores without having to leave the comfort of their stores,” Reid went on to say.

The more dealers are using online remarketing channels, it is also boosting the entire process.

“It’s a confidence thing as well for our dealers,” Reid stressed. “We have to make sure we’re representing the vehicles correctly by giving them as many images as they need, by giving the proper description and condition report.

“Throughout the years we’ve built up that confidence where can make a move that’s just exclusively running cars virtually,” he added.

Reid also credited TFS’ auction partners for making the recent decision to push vehicles online first a reality.

“We’ve been very transparent in this whole process with both Manheim and ADESA,” Reid pointed out. “They’ve been great partners throughout the entire process. We are certainly working together to improve condition reports and improve the offerings and improve how we get vehicles in front of dealers. Manheim and ADESA have been very receptive to make those changes for us.”

With the fourth quarter just beginning, Reid assessed how TFS’ remarketing efforts have unfolded so far this year.

“It’s been a great year for us,” he declared to Auto Remarketing. “We’ve been able to support our franchise dealers in their time of need. We’ve also been able to supply our non-franchised dealers with off-lease and used vehicles throughout the year. It’s definitely been a year of change for us.

“We’ve certainly made some big changes by moving to the Internet, but we feel like that’s the best venue both for us and our customers at the auctions,” Reid went on to say.

Also among these changes was Reid taking on his current role at TFS just days before the March 11 natural disasters in Japan.

“When that happened in March, we certainly were very important, and the support of our franchise dealers is actually how we overcame that,” Reid said about how the automaker used its remarketing capabilities to navigate supply challenges created by the earthquake and tsunami.

“Making sure we had our off-lease vehicles and all our vehicles readily available for our franchise dealers really helped in a time of need,” he went on to say.

Reid will be part of an iRemarketing panel discussion focusing on buying and selling used vehicles online at the 2011 National Remarketing Conference, which will be held Nov. 16–18 in Las Vegas.

The session titled “iRemarketing 2011: Going Direct to the Source — New Ideas and Fresh Approaches to Buying and Selling Pre-Owned Inventory Online,” will feature some of the nation’s top remarketers discussing their strategies for online buying and selling.

Along with Reid, panelists include:

—Jennifer Schade, manager of remarketing, ARI Fleet
—Kevin Chartier, director of remarketing, NMAC
—Michael Sanchez, director of remarketing, Porsche

For a complete agenda for the National Remarketing Conference, visit http://nrc.autoremarketing.com/agenda.

The 2011 National Remarketing Conference, presented by SmartAuction, is one of three conferences that constitute Auto Remarketing’s Used Car Week, a weeklong event that also includes the 2011 CPO Forum, presented by AutoTrader.com, and the brand-new Re3 Conference (Recovery, Repossession and Remarketing). All three conferences will be held at the Red Rock Casino, Resort and Spa in Las Vegas the week of Nov. 14–18.

For more information about the 2011 National Remarketing Conference, which will be held Nov. 16–18, visit http://nrc.autoremarketing.com. For more information about the 2011 CPO Forum, which will be held Nov. 14–15, visit http://cpo.autoremarketing.com. For more information about the brand-new Re3 Conference, which will be held the morning of Nov. 16, visit www.autoremarketing.com/re3.