The growing trend of an increased number of large-volume professional buyers in the auction halls will continue into this year.

These include buyers for the car supermarket chains, who helped to bring some spark into the auction halls at the tail end of 2007 as they bought in stock in preparation for New Year sales.

However, the main story for the end of 2007 was of a tough period with a softening of demand just as there was an increase in supply for the first time since mid-2006.

Tony Gannon, communications director at BCA, said: “It remains to be seen if the traditional spike in values will occur in January.

“If it does, we would expect to see values remaining firm until the post-Easter period.

“One thing we can be confident of is the continued consolidation of the vendor base which is creating increasing numbers of large-volume customers in the sector.

“This will make the remarketing process ever more business critical for these customers and companies supplying them will need to deliver innovative, efficient and value-added solutions.”

Mr Gannon added: “It all adds up to a huge choice of vehicles for professional buyers, which must be a good thing when it comes to serving the needs of increasingly sophisticated retail customers.”