ATLANTA -

Manheim has named a general sales manager for its Northeast market and also appointed a general manager at Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth.

Named to Northeast market GSM post is Bill Harbourne, while Nicole Graham-Ponce is taking on the GM role at Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth.

Sharing a bit more on their backgrounds, Manheim began with Graham-Ponce. They noted that she started her automotive career running an independent dealership with her father before becoming dealer sales representative at Omaha Auto Auction in 1998.

The auction would become Manheim Omaha, and Graham-Ponce would end up moving up to roles such as general sales manager, assistant general manager and market general sales manager, which was her most recent post.

“Nicole has been instrumental in developing relationships with both dealer and commercial customers,” said Barry Roop, market vice president. “In her previous role, she created and led a team focused on building customer relationships while generating revenue in all sales capacities for Manheim. Her customer and sales knowledge will be a huge asset to Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth.”

As for Harbourne, he has been with Cox since 2004, when he took a position with AutoTrader.com. He has been with Manheim since 2007 and has held positions of increasing responsibilty.

“Bill is helping to lead change in an evolving marketplace, while growing sales through teamwork, strategy and business development,” said Scott Michaels, Manheim’s regional vice president of field sales, East.

Harbourne’s most recent position was as an account manager for the Major Dealer Team, where he worked with some of the company’s largest dealer customers.

Before his time with Cox, he was the general manager of a multi-line import dealership in the New York City area.

Manheim Finds Rapid Mobile Growth

In other news, the company released the Manheim 2012 Q3 Update on Tuesday and found that visits to its website have climbed 11 percent, while mobile traffic to the site has more than tripled.

Specifically, the report indicated that mobile visits to Manheim.com jumped 361 percent year-over-year in the third quarter. The company said that each week, more than 29,000 customers turn to their smartphone or mobile device to connect digitally with Manheim.

In fact, a third of Manheim customers use a mobile product to tap into the site.

“Customers are increasingly choosing to conduct business online, with 25 percent of all transactions being made by an online buyer,” officials said.

“These numbers signify the digital evolution occurring in the auto remarketing industry, as dealers increasingly turn to the convenience of online and mobile channels to buy, manage and sell their inventory,” they added.

This will be topic of great interest at the upcoming Used Car Week series of conferences, which is being held Nov. 12–16 at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz.

In fact, Todd Kinzle of Auction Genius will address some of this during his session on “Thriving in the New Landscape of Online Auctions,” during the National Remarketing Conference event at Used Car Week.

Kinzle joined Manheim’s Susie Heins — who will be recognized at Used Car Week as a Women in Remarketing honoree — in talking with Auto Remarketing in more detail about the emerging online auction environment.  

Their insight can be found in the Nov. 15–30 print edition of our publication, which is our special on-site issue for the Used Car Week conferences.