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Operators are spreading their wings and using the different tools that web sales offer to their advantage, although, as managing director of Shoreham Vehicle Auctions, Alex Wright, explains: "We can now distribute catalogues instantly to a targeted audience of buyers who can bid from anywhere in the world. They can also monitor the auction via live video stream and see in-depth appraisals."
The proportion of used vehicles sold through digital channels is still on the rise, but it isn't as meteoric an increase as the remarketing companies experienced earlier on in the technology's existence, according to some. Wright believes there's a plateau happening now: "Last Christmas (2013) 20% of all purchases were made online. At present we forecast this to remain at this level."
He adds that the ability to sell cars overseas has been one of the biggest technological assets to the used car business: "The biggest change we have seen in our remarking industry is the ability to target specific buyers for specific lots across the world; with this huge, targeted audience we are riding one of the highest markets, with lots achieving the highest values seen to date. This increase has been brought on by buyers embracing the use of technology to buy and sell vehicles."
Jon Mitchell, sales director of Autorola, itself an online remarketing specialist, says digital used car sales are continuing to account for a bigger chunk of the used car market, despite Wright's suggestion that they're levelling off.
"Online will continue to grow over the next five years, eroding away at physical auctions. Our business in the UK continues to grow at 30% per year."
The only real drawback to more trade buyers leaning on remote and online methods is that they're more considered with their purchases, and less prone to getting caught in the flurry of the auction hall, as Wright explains: "The auction hall is a theatre. People gain confidence from seeing others bidding - we are social animals. With this atmosphere, buyers often spend more money than they would online. Recent research has proven that buyers spend far less when shopping online as they are detracted from the emotion and environment of the sales floor where sales can often be implosive."
The remarketing business is also keeping apace with the rest of the world with platforms for mobile and tablet. Henstock explains: "The rise of mobile and tablet computing continues to change the way customers interact with the remarketing sector, as it has done with every sector of business. The availability of data, pre-, during and post-sale has grown enormously recently, and with this, an ever-increasing demand for more and more analysis.
"Dealer buyers are more and more aware of the benefits of marketing themselves to their customers online, and specifically via mobile devices, and expect the same ability when they are purchasing in the wholesale sector. iPads are increasingly seen on the auction floor as a working tool for buyers."
Mitchell says it's worth buying into the mobile side of things, but adds that not all remarketing technology is digital: "New apps and handheld vehicle inspection technologies should all be considered, but non-IT technologies like smart repair have also transformed defleet processes, many of which are now being embraced as they speed up the sale process."
Further down the line, initiatives that speed up the defleeting process and simply get cars sold faster are likely to come into force.
Henstock says: "There is an ongoing desire to shorten the remarketing chain and use data to proactively predict where buyer demand will grow. Online volumes will continue to increase, underpinned by accurate and rich data, but also needing the physical infrastructure to support this growth. Indeed, the requirement for physical remarketing, vehicle storage and attendant logistics will grow as the volume returns to the marketplace."
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