Soon, Doug Hadden says, the wholesale vehicle market will transition from the majority of cars being sold in the auction to most being sold online.

Hadden, who is the director of strategic dealer sales and services at ADESA, was speaking to dealers at a breakout session during the DealerSocket User Summit in early October.

It should be noted that Hadden believes there won’t ever be a time when there’s not physical auctions. However, online buying and selling in the wholesale market is ramping up.

It used to be that 10 percent of wholesale car sales were online, he said. Now, it’s between 20 percent and 30 percent.

And it “won’t be long,” Hadden said, before that number is between 40 percent and 60 percent.

“The beauty of it is, it’s getting easier,” he said to the dealer attendees. “But you have to quit fighting it.”

Those dealers that refuse to buy online are likely to be left behind, he said.

Hadden suggested that the best car a dealer can buy online is a low-mileage, off-lease car. And there could be plenty of options in that group next year: Hadden said there will likely be an estimated 4.3 million lease returns in 2017.

“And it’s not slowing down,” he said.

Nor are various providers in the online wholesale market. For instance, ACV Auctions —  a mobile platform that can enable dealers to view, bid and purchase inventory online from selling franchised dealers — announced in late September it had raised $5 million in venture funding, led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from SoftBank Capital NY, Armory Square Ventures and Rand Capital.

In a news release, new chief executive officer George Chamoun said: “In just one year, more than 800 dealerships registered for our mobile service, proving the value of our highly innovative service. These are the same reasons we also attracted top venture capital firms to fuel our growth.

“We are proving the case that dealers prefer to purchase wholesale inventory on ACV, because we enable transparency, trust and faster access to fresh trades,” he continued.

Beepi, a peer-to-peer online car sales marketplace on the consumer-facing side, has also moved toward the wholesale market.

In September, the company launched Beepi Blue, a new service aimed at making it easier to sell a used vehicle online or via mobile phone.

With Beepi Blue, Beepi will make an offer on all vehicles, even ones that don't meet Beepi's stringent requirements or don't pass the 240-point inspection, and sell them at a wholesale auction.