Steve Solomon spent the first decade of his career in the finance group at the former Chrysler Corporation, and a job in used-car pricing gave him his “first taste” of the auto-auction business.

Solomon would go on to hold other finance roles within the fleet organization at Chrysler, but when an opportunity came up in 1997 for him to join the remarketing department, “I couldn’t resist,” he said.

“And from there I sat in every chair along the way. And still, it’s about the relationships,” Solomon said. “You meet a lot of good people in this industry, and a lot of times, they turn into your close friends.”

His current chair, so to speak, is senior vice president of asset remarketing at Santander Consumer USA.

And now Solomon has a new title to add to that: Auto Remarketing’s 2019 National Remarketing Executive of the Year, an award sponsored by Auction Management Solutions.

He will be presented the award on Nov. 13 during the National Remarketing Conference portion of Used Car Week.

Solomon is someone who enjoys the remarketing and auction business for “the sights and the sounds and the action,” and spending time with people in the business, be it colleagues or dealers buying cars at the auction.

He also appreciates the “feel of the business,” he said.

“Even though it’s changed a lot with the technology that’s happened, it’s still going to the sale, seeing the dealers, talking to the dealers, setting up that sale and making sure you’re maximizing your returns,” Solomon said.

Speaking of that technology, that is the biggest change Solomon has noticed since joining the remarketing business some 22 years ago. Back then, it was a sea of paper at auctions.

Condition reports, check-ins, sales slips, sign-out sheets. Everything was paper, he said.

“With all the technology, with being able to sell cars upstream, simulcast auctions, that has really changed over time,” Solomon said. “It’s streamlined the business in my opinion. It’s made it more assessable and easier to do business.”

Channel management

And as Solomon alludes to, that business is being done through a variety of channels, be it in-lane, online, upstream and beyond.

So how do does a consignor balance channel management and determine which vehicles are sold in which avenue?

For Solomon, there are “two unique portfolios,” one being the Santander portfolio and the other being the Chrysler Capital portfolio (Chrysler Capital, which is part of Santander Consumer USA, is FCA US’s preferred provider for new-vehicle leases, retail installment financing and dealers’ commercial needs).

“Our Santander portfolio is, obviously, a repossession portfolio, so those cars are going to mainly go through auctions,” Solomon said. “We can sell some cars on the Internet there if we have some real nice ones, but typically, we want to run those vehicles through the lane because they come in all different shapes and sizes and conditions and whatnot. And it’s important to get as many active bidders on that type of a portfolio.

“On the Chrysler Capital side, it’s more unique. We have a relationship with FCA, and what we need to do is support the dealer base,” he said. “As vehicles are returned on the off-lease side of the business, we do offer the vehicles to the franchised dealers first before we put it into an open environment on our site, called Chrysler Direct, which is through OPENLANE.”

Solomon added that “we give the dealers the first shot at it. We try to sell as many cars as we can before they get to auction … I want to say about 30% of our vehicles, give or take a tick up and down, don’t make it to auction.

“And then from there, we’ll put them through the auction process and sell as many as we can there. And if they don’t sell, we put them back up online.”

Moving the cars

One of the challenges to remarketing the company’s portfolio is being able to get cars transported to the sales, Solomon said. That’s particularly tricky with off-lease volumes, which for his company, most come back in the Northeast or Great Lakes regions.

“And when you have 75% of your cars in just two regions, and you have a large country to try to sell cars in, the cost of moving cars and just being able to do it more economically is a huge challenge for us,” he said.

The company uses an optimizer that recommends the best locations to then sell those off-lease units based on where they’re likely to “maximize the residual values,” Solomon said.  The company may need to move the car to Texas or Florida, for example, from the Northeast or Great Lakes.

“You’ve got the time of moving it and the cost. Or you can miss the sale, because you’re making a decision today. By the time the car gets there, the market could have changed some,” Solomon said. “That is always a challenge for us. But we get through it. We get through it the best we can.”

CPO pilot

Given the relationship with FCA, Solomon said Chrysler Capital has been able to utilize the automaker’s certified pre-owned vehicle program. It has piloted a program called Fast-Pass at one of its open sales in Long Island, N.Y.

Essentially, Chrysler Capital is able to use the FCA CPO program to pre-certify vehicles before selling them to dealers in the auction lanes.

“Typically, when the factory does it, they do it in a closed environment. It’s going to be factory dealers that are going to purchase the vehicle,” Solomon said.

But Fast-Pass program sell these vehicles in an open environment, with FCA’s blessing.

“And what we’ve seen is a large portion of factory dealers are coming to our sales to buy these vehicles. So, it’s worked out very well for us. We’ve seen a huge lift on the portfolio on the vehicles that qualify,” Solomon said. “We’re looking to hopefully expand into other markets, with FCA’s approval, but we’ve really seen an improvement with our residuals with that program.”

He added: “Basically, it’s a pre-certified vehicle. We do the 125-point inspection, make sure there’s no issues with it whatsoever. If there is, if we miss something, we take the car back, no questions asked.

“But basically, once the dealer gets it back to his store, a franchised (FCA) dealer, all he has to do is go into their system, qualify the car in there, and they get all the rewards for it being a certified pre-owned with the factory,” Solomon said.

He has seen independent dealers buy those cars, too.

“The feedback is, even though they know they can’t put it into a certified program, it gives them another selling point to their customer on the independent side, saying, ‘Hey, this car went through this program. We’re not a franchised dealer, but it would be the best of the best if you went to the franchised dealer.’”

Solomon is the seventh person to receive the National Remarketing Executive of the Year award. Prior honorees include:

2017:  Scott Mousaw, United Auto Credit

2016: Greg Thibault and Todd August, Avis Budget Group

2015: Howard Segal, Wells Fargo

2014: Robert Stahl, Ally Financial

2013: Dan Kennedy, General Motors