If there was any doubt about the willingness of buyers to bid for used cars online, Manheim Auctions’ latest quarterly figures show that using the internet to buy stock in physical auctions is booming across the country.

With all of its 19 UK centres fully geared up to broadcast live physical sales over the web Manheim is now transmitting live action from the auction halls for around 40 sales each week. Using its latest Simulcast technology the auction giant is seeing the overall number of online bidders and vehicles sold on the web continuing to grow at between 7% and 10 % each month. This is continuing the trend of doubling Simulcast sales each year since its launch in 2005.

In the first quarter of 2008 alone, 1350 individual trade buyers have logged into physical auctions using Simulcast on a combined 11,150 different occasions. Of these bidders, 1014 have actually bought online, successfully scooping up over 4000 cars between them.

Manheim’s report shows that already this year 85 different vendors, including leasing companies, fleets, manufacturers, rental firms and dealer groups have all successfully sold cars on Simulcast. As in physical auction, regular vendors can build tremendous loyalty with buyers in the online community. One of Manheim’s first Simulcast vendors, Arval has now got a regular following of 255 active online buyers and Arval’s sales frequently sell 15% of the overall entry on the web. The highest converter of sales to online buyers is currently Volkswagen with 110 registered web bidders who regularly snap up 20% of the overall entry, with some sales exceeding 40%!

As for the buyer experience, Hampshire-based trade buyer Darren Taylor whose company Motorline buys stock on behalf of over 15 franchised dealer groups and used car supermarkets is very enthusiastic about Simulcast. He said, “I’ve been using the service for over 2 years and it’s now become part of my daily routine. You simply log into Manheim’s daily catalogues, select the vehicles you’re interested in, view the full condition reports to ensure there are no surprises and then bid on the system as the various lots come through.  Pretty much every day now we successfully buy all types of cars online competing with auction hall bidders at six of Manheim auctions, including Leeds and Colchester. There’s still plenty of competition to contend with in the halls but Simulcast lets me do this without leaving the showroom which is great when you’re trying to cover the country and feed a number of hungry dealerships. ”

Commenting on this increasingly popular channel to market, John Given Manheim’s Group Sales Director said, “The profile of vehicles sold online is quite interesting, averaging 28 months and 33K Miles with an average sales value around £9500. Perhaps not surprisingly, in general vehicles sold online are slightly younger with less mileage than those sold to hall bidders, nevertheless the gap is narrowing and there are plenty of exceptions. What our figures do clearly show is that, as buyers become more comfortable with internet bidding, online purchasing is not just restricted to the nearly new, commodity type stock which perhaps it used to be. Providing buyers trust our descriptions and can obtain further advice from staff at our auction centres as required, they are quite happy to bid for all manner of stock.”

The report also contains some fascinating examples of vehicles sold to web buyers last month at the extreme ends of value and mileage, which underlines the point made by John Given.

Premium cars:

06 Aston Martin Vantage 20,043 Miles Sold £57,500 (97.3% CAP Clean) at Manheim Coventry
07 Jaguar XKR 11,615 Miles Sold £49,400 (100.2% CAP Clean) Manheim Colchester
07 Mercedes SL 350 7,675 Miles Sold £46,500 (103.2% CAP Clean) Manheim Leeds
05 Porsche 911 Carrera 27,742 Miles Sold £42,000 (99.8% Cap Clean) Manheim Colchester

Bargain cars:

00 Ford Ka 1.3 84,650 Miles Sold £1,100 (95% CAP Clean) Manheim Rotherham
98 Citroen Saxo 1.1 56,500 Miles Sold £550 (89% CAP Clean) Manheim Rotherham
98 Nissan Micra 1.1 64,700 Miles Sold £900 (88% CAP Clean) Manheim Wimbledon
97 Peugeot 306 1.9 75,900 Miles Sold £775 (84% CAP Clean) Manheim Coventry

High mileage cars:

03 Mercedes E220 CDi 222,929 Miles Sold £8,850 (107.6% CAP Clean) Manheim Rotherham
05 VW Passat 1.9 TDi 211,900 Miles Sold £3,600 (137% CAP Clean) Manheim Leicester
04 Audi A4 1.8T S 194,450 Miles Sold £5,500 (165% CAP Clean) Manheim Bristol
03 Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDi 178,650 Miles Sold £4,600 (101% CAP Clean) Manheim Coventry

Low mileage cars:

07 Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCI 140 DPF Del Miles Sold £16,750 (112% CAP Clean) Manheim Leicester
06 VW Golf GT FSi 2,650 Miles Sold £13,900 (104% CAP Clean) Manheim Bristol
07 Vaux Corsa 1.2 CDTi Life 4,400 Miles Sold £6,500 (100% CAP Clean) Manheim Birmingham
06 BMW 116i Sport 8,250 Miles Sold 11,359 (100% CAP Clean) Manheim Colchester

Manheim has also been using Simulcast to broadcast light commercial vehicles online for nearly two years in its CV Live programme and more recently in February this year this has been extended to cover heavy goods vehicles. John Given was quite realistic about this development, saying “We had not expected the commercial vehicle market to react so positively and quickly to online selling but the results speak for themselves with close to 10% of CV Live entries now being bought by web buyers.”