Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen states, businesses and our own operations begin to reopen. For us and our clients, this has been both promising and challenging, especially as pandemic levels remain unstable. At Manheim, our teams are working hard to welcome clients onsite to preview vehicles, helping them find vehicles on our lots, and preparing them to safely join in-lane bidding. Manheim now offers in-lane bidding at 30 pilot sites, with 13 of those locations added this week. We are truly pleased to begin offering the type of access that our clients have asked for and appreciate their patience and support of our safety policies and protocols.
While everyone is reopening their businesses differently, we remain committed to doing so in the safest way possible.
Throughout this time period, we’ve seen strong resale values, a record increase in vehicle and transport demand, and dealer adoption of our digital platforms that continues to climb. For example, at Manheim Pennsylvania for the week ending June 19, dealers bought 8,200 of the approximately 10,000 vehicles offered for sale via digital channels. These historic results topped their combined physical and digital sales performance from the same period a year ago. And, at Manheim St. Pete, weekly sales are experiencing an unprecedented 450 Simulcast buyers per lane.
As a result of this continuing progress, we’ve been able to bring back approximately 3,000 furloughed team members to support our clients and facilities.
With more of our business being conducted digitally, we are aware of how critically important it is to provide our clients with accurate and consistent vehicle information. Our recent efforts to improve in this area include:
Forming a condition report Advisory Council made up primarily of dealers
Upgrading our base images from 7 to 15
Re-examining our arbitration terms to ensure they are consistent when doing business digitally
Revisiting AutoGrade, our long-standing vehicle condition grading technology, to ensure it meets today’s requirements.
Please know, we will continue to listen to our clients and focus our efforts in these and other areas to instill buyer confidence in our condition reports and support their business needs. Since early June, we’ve also reopened parts of our operations to clients. Below is the latest operational update:
After the success of in-lane bidding pilots (also known as Digital Block sales) at 17 locations, we are adding 13 more sites this week. Digital Block sales are those held at Manheim physical locations using Simulcast. The vehicle never physically moves across the block; it is only displayed on-screen. Should the data continue to support a safe environment, we anticipate adding more sites in the coming weeks.
Sellers can now represent their vehicles on the block at all Manheim locations.
All Manheim sites now offer expanded viewing days and times for clients.
Most locations, except for some Northeast sites, have returned to staging vehicles in proper order.
Lot Vision, now operational at 16 sites, is helping dealers find vehicles faster.
Ongoing Policies
Manheim will continue to offer dealer support by:
Waiving Simulcast buyer and seller success fees
Waiving fee for vehicles sold without a title or Title Absent (TA).
Providing clients complimentary access to Central Dispatch for 30-days
Providing resources such as the Cox Automotive Market Insights and Outlook to help auto industry participants make the best decisions for the future.
Directing dealers to the Manheim Learning Center for ways to save time when doing business digitally
While everyone is reopening their businesses differently, we remain committed to doing so in the safest way possible.
