In a year when physical sale halls packed with buyers have been rendered impractical by social distancing measures, the importance of a strong digital remarketing offer has never been greater. It’s perhaps no surprise then that Aston Barclay was named as Best Remarketing Company at the Business Car Awards for the second year in a row.
Its digital success dates back to 2017, when it was the first UK remarketing firm to launch a mobile bidding app. Since then, the Buyers App has been updated more than 20 times, had over 13,500 iOS downloads, and is now responsible for more than 28% of the company’s online purchases.
Aston Barclay built on the success of the app with the launch in 2019 of a digital platform, combining four products into an end-to-end proposition, taking vehicles seamlessly all the way through from initial appraisal to physical delivery to the buyer.
The e-Valuate appraisal app allows the accurate capture of vehicle details and damage, and the provision of market values for retail car dealerships and supermarkets, as well as the option to sell the car to Aston Barclay’s The Car Buying Group for a guaranteed price.
The e-Hub offers an instant and detailed view of a customer’s remarketing programme, with channel management control and real-time reporting dashboards.
The e-Xchange product is for wholesale used vehicle trading, allowing vendors to sell unwanted or duplicate stock 24/7.
Finally, e-Live is the virtual auction programme, combining the power of an online digital auction experience for buyers with all the benefits of a physical sale, enabling the selling of used vehicles from anywhere.
With this comprehensive digital proposition, when the coronavirus lockdown measures came into force the business was in a position to ensure that not a single day of trading was missed. In quarter two of this year – when for the most part all physical auctions were suspended – just under 12,300 vehicles were still sold, while as things started to open up once again in July nearly 98% of that month’s 12,093 sales were still online.
Aston Barclay also offers a wide range of online wholesale stock funding options with a range of finance houses. It also aims to keep the wider industry informed with regular insight reports, and a newly introduced webinar to help walk customers through the data presented to them.
The combined initiatives are all designed with the customer in mind, to improve processes and efficiencies for all stakeholders, boost bottom-line finances, and increase profitability by enhancing business cash flows.
Aston Barclay managing director – customer Martin Potter said: “Aston Barclay is proud to put the customer at the heart of everything we do. Our leading results across all vehicle types show that both buyers and vendors trust us to be their remarketing partner of choice.
“We remain committed to focusing our efforts and investments in technology and infrastructure and not in competing with our own customers.”
