In an international move from the digital automotive wholesale company, KAR Global said Monday it has consolidated its ADESA UK and ADESA GWListe into ADESA Europe’s consolidated platform, where buyers can find vehicles from all areas on ADESA.eu.
In a news release, Srisu Subrahmanyam, who is president of the KAR Services Group and executive vice president of operations at KAR Global, said: “Consolidating platforms and making it easier for customers to find inventory is one of the ways we’re accelerating KAR’s vision to build the world’s greatest digital marketplaces for used vehicles.
“We are thrilled to offer a best-in-class solution for our customers in Europe that reinforces our commitment to a superior user experience,” Subrahmanyam said.
The company said the integrated platform gives customers an efficient way to trade vehicles online and allows them to connect with one partner for inspections, auctions and delivery.
“With more than 4,000 vehicles in auction every day and over 100,000 registered dealers ready to trade at adesa.eu, we offer unparalleled exposure and attract the best possible prices,” ADESA Europe CEO Johan Meyssen said. “Plus, our German and UK customers are still able to use a country-specific experience thanks to customizable filters.”
For UK users, they will have access to an upgraded customer experience that includes more vehicle information, enhanced presentation and easier vehicle browsing.
ADESA GWListe will have additional tools and features at their disposal, including the ADESA Inspect app and ADESA Sell dealer portal.
“When UK users log in to the mobile-friendly, ‘always-on’ ADESA website, filters apply to automatically show UK vehicles,” ADESA UK managing director Jonathan Holland said. “I’m sure they will be very excited about the benefits the new platform brings. The fees and VAT are transparently indicated, and bids and purchases can be tracked in a very easy way.”
KAR Global said Monday that its CARWAVE and BacklotCars products have integrated into a single digital platform, which is hosted on BacklotCars.
The platform offers both a live auction (currently held on Mondays and Thursdays) and a 24-7 marketplace, giving dealers flexibility, along with more inventory access for buying dealers and a deeper buyer base for selling dealers.
KAR is starting this new auction sale type to sellers in California and buyers in nearby areas. The company plans to expand it in coming months.
KAR acquired CARWAVE in a $450 million cash deal in 2021. It purchased BacklotCars for $425 million in 2020.
“We combined the very best of both platforms onto BacklotCars. In doing so we expanded access to inventory for buyers, increased visibility on sellers’ vehicles and provided a more simplified customer experience,” KAR CEO Peter Kelly said in a news release.
“We worked closely with dealers to understand what they value most, and incorporated their feedback so that we continue to meet the needs of dealers in every market,” Kelly said. “I am excited to see the increased traction that is being created and we look forward to rolling this capability out across the U.S. in 2023.”
BacklotCars president Justin Davis added: “Our teams worked tirelessly to ensure the transition was frictionless — providing our dealers with resources to ensure total support from day one.
“In addition to the choice of sale types for our dealers, our KAR Global network also provides access to a dynamic transportation network and floorplanning solutions with industry-leading rates,” Davis said
As an added benefit for Cherokee Media Group Premium Members, we are offering special episodes of the Auto Remarketing Podcast featuring general sessions from Used Car Week in November.
Our first special episode features the "Auction Technology Part I: Digital Platform Executives Talk Industry Evolution" panel discussion, which included Justin Davis of BacklotCars, Steve Kapusta of Ally SmartAuction, Jason McClenahan of EBlock, George Chamoun of ACV and Dan Diedrich of Auction Edge.
To listen to the podcast …
Read more
Digital technology is revolutionizing the auction process, making it much more efficient and accurate, said participants on two panels during Used Car Week.
The move to a fully digital auction process is inexorable, said Steve Kapusta, who is senior vice president of Ally Remarketing Services at Ally SmartAuction.
“You can’t slow (it) down. It is seamless and …
Read more
Continuing a collaborative theme unfolding in other parts of the wholesale market this week, Work Truck Solutions on Wednesday announced an addition to its Vehicle Acquisition Search Tool (VAST), adding Manheim as a partner.
As commercial vehicle inventory shortages continue to restrict franchised dealers’ allotments from the factory, Work Truck Solutions highlighted that enterprising dealers are finding alternative sources to fill their customers’ needs.
In response, Work Truck Solutions continues to add to the vehicle source pool within VAST, and with the addition of Manheim, VAST now has more than 50,000 commercial vehicles available.
Dealers can use VAST to find inventory from auctions, fleets, rental companies and other sources efficiently from one platform.
Work Truck Solutions said this proactive approach to finding innovative ways to fulfill customer needs is helping commercial dealers build loyalty with their business customers and maintain a positive revenue stream.
With VAST, commercial dealers can quickly narrow their search by make and model, as well as unique filters, such as body/chassis/cab type, plows, and Gross Vehicle Weight Rating among others.
With so much vehicle detail available on VAST, Work Truck Solutions said that physically being at auction to identify upfits and features is no longer needed.
“We’re happy to provide another valuable inventory source to dealerships selling commercial vehicles,” Work Truck Solutions chief executive officer Kathryn Schifferle said in a news release.
“Supply chain difficulties continue to put stress on business customers of dealerships as they depend on having vehicles to maintain and grow their businesses. We’re always looking for ways to help them succeed and adding another inventory source to VAST is an example of our focus.”
On Tuesday, Mississippi-based tech startup Carmigo announced the close of its most recent funding round.
After receiving $7 million from both the original and new investors, Carmigo said will continue building its online marketplace connecting individual vehicle sellers with dealers in a one-day auction.
According to a news release, this funding round brings the total investment in Carmigo to $10 million since its launch in January 2021.
“This round close is a significant milestone for Carmigo,” Carmigo co-founder and chief executive officer Andrew Warmath said in the news release. “Our team created Carmigo after recognizing a significant pain point in the automotive industry. Our virtual platform creates a convenient and competitive environment for consumers, while helping our dealers source quality inventory. We are proud of what we have built, but this recent investment makes us excited for what’s to come.”
Carmigo indicated A major investor in the round was Southern Bancorp in partnership with Advantage Capital.
Impressed by Carmigo’s innovative business model, Advantage Capital and Southern Bancorp will support Carmigo’s mission to “instill a higher degree of trust in the automotive industry while providing jobs in North Mississippi.”
“Our core values stem from our commitment to invest in small businesses and grow communities,” said Brian Anderson, principal at Advantage Capital. “Carmigo is the perfect example of this dedication. They are committed to bringing jobs to Tupelo and fostering the job market.”
Bill Wright, CEO of Southern Bancorp’s Western Region added, “This investment in Carmigo represents Southern’s commitment to support flexible lending options in markets where capital is less readily available.”
In addition to cultivating jobs in northern Mississippi, Carmigo added this funding round will further product development to enhance buying capabilities for dealerships and the selling experience for individual sellers.
To learn learning more about Carmigo, visit gocarmigo.com.
On Wednesday, ACV officially launched its two newest technology pieces with at least one dealer group raving about the capabilities.
The digital automotive marketplace and data services partner for dealers and commercial partners rolled out what it’s calling ACV’s Smart Acquisition Manager (S.A.M.), which is designed to deliver two new innovative ways to engage with ACV’s Marketplace.
The company highlighted ACV’s S.A.M. also offers a buying API (application programming interface) to drive a programmatic buying user experience.
ACV explained through a news release that the technology is geared to make its 20-minute digital auction more powerful by introducing these solutions that can allow dealers to set-up proxy bids via an AI-powered buying agent to make data-driven decisions.
These proxies will bid on and buy vehicles within the ACV Marketplace entirely based on the dealer’s pre-set criteria.
ACV’s S.A.M. also can enable dealers to customize their automatic buying preferences down to minute-level vehicle details, which include more than 160 data fields.
Dealers can use S.A.M. to build highly customized rules that will not only identify vehicle specifications and price ranges, but could, for example, also include preferences for vehicle condition based on ACV’s leading inspection reports.
Later this year, the company said these capabilities will be extended to consumer inventory running in ACV’s Live Appraisal lane within the ACV Marketplace.
Here are more details about how these two programmatic buying options are intended to function.
—S.A.M.: For dealers who do not have their own technology platforms, they can use ACV’s user experience to create a highly detailed S.A.M. Model including specifying condition, pricing, and location parameters. Upon completion, their inventory needs are then launched automatically.
Dealers then can choose to engage in one of two formats. They can select S.A.M. Alerts where they receive an automated notification from the system for approval of the bid. Alternatively, dealers can select S.A.M. Bids for automatic proxy bidding, based on their preset S.A.M. Model.
—S.A.M. API – Live since the fourth quarter, ACV said this offering is available for dealers who have technology platforms that can integrate directly with ACV’s real-time APIs to generate bids within our marketplace.
Current users of this solution include large dealers, rental car companies and others in the used-vehicle buying category.
One of them is Tasca Automotive Group, which was mentioned in ACV’s news release.
“I’ve always said that the Tasca Automotive Group uses ACV because it makes buying and selling cars easy. And now with ACV’s S.A.M., our dealerships are able to add even more efficiency to managing our inventory acquisition needs,” Tasca vice president Bob Tasca III said. “Dealers no longer need multiple buyers tracking down cars at all hours of the day.
“With ACV’s latest technology, you set up this AI-powered buying tool to find the exact cars you need for your dealership and let it do the work for you,” Tasca continued. “ACV gives us the confidence to buy and sell online with speed, full transparency and the utmost integrity. They put our company in a position to win.”
The company said there are no additional fees to use either of the programmatic buying solutions, only ACV’s standard fees related to approved sales transactions.
“Since our inception, ACV’s mission has been to bring trust, transparency and efficiency to the car buying process,” ACV chief executive officer George Chamoun said. “One of the most common pieces of feedback we get from dealers is that they need vehicles, and they don’t have enough time to manage all the traditional inventory sources. We saw an opportunity to make the inventory buying process even more efficient and can’t wait for our customers to leverage S.A.M. and earn back hours of precious time.
“S.A.M. is part of ACV’s holistic strategy where data intelligence is leveraged throughout the automotive ecosystem,” Chamoun continued. “The initial use case for S.A.M. was buying on the current 20-minute auction within the ACV Marketplace, but our vision is much broader. In the future, dealers may be able to select S.A.M. outside of ACV’s live digital auctions. ACV will continue to help dealers source and buy cars from consumers and other sources.”
For more information about ACV, visit acvauctions.com.
Continuing our series of special episodes of the Auto Remarketing Podcasts featuring general sessions from this year’s Auto Intel Summit — an added benefit for Cherokee Media Group Premium Members — we turn our focus back to the wholesale space.
Brad Burns of Manheim delivers a keynote presentation titled, “Digital Wholesale: Moving at the Speed of Light.”
To listen to the episode, go to this webpage.
EBlock has been on the fast track to business expansion and growth in both its home — Canada, where it launched in 2015 — as well as the United States, which it entered in 2019.
Jason McClenahan, who is president and chief executive officer of EBlock parent company E Inc., said in an episode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast recorded at NADA Show 2022 in Las Vegas earlier this month: “We're ready for major U.S. expansion.”
The company was also busy in February when
Read more
ACV chief executive officer George Chamoun returns to the Auto Remarketing Podcast during this episode recorded at NADA Show 2022 earlier this month in Las Vegas.
George sits down with senior editor Joe Overby to talk about ACV's recent acquisitions of Drivably and Monk and how they fit into the company's ecosystem, how dealers can more efficiently buy consumer cars, where the industry needs to head next and much more.
To listen to the conversation, click on the link available below, or visit the Auto Remarketing Podcast page.
Download and subscribe to the Auto Remarketing Podcast on iTunes or on Google Play.
