Autoquake, which sells ex-fleet cars direct to retail customers online, is planning to capture a greater share of the fleet remarketing sector.

The company, which only sells vehicles over the internet, has become a thorn in the side of the traditional auction centres. Its volumes are growing: it will sell 10,000 cars this year – double 2008’s numbers.

Maximum capacity is double its current annual throughput, although Autoquake is looking to expand into the greater London area and possibly the southwest next year.

Its attractiveness to fleets in terms of reduced days to sell, a 90% conversion rate and higher sale prices has already seen 11 of the top FN20 companies agree to sell cars through its channel.

However, they still only put 10,000 of the 1.2 million cars a year that are defleeted into Autoquake’s hands.

Now in a move designed to attract more suppliers and retail customers, the company has employed an expert in online sales.

Its new chief technology officer Troy Kaser comes from Expedia, where he was vice-president of engineering.

“Autoquake is working with its suppliers to change the shape of fleet car remarketing,” said Kaser.

“Expedia harnessed the power of the internet to help customers buy travel in a new and completely transparent way. Autoquake is at the forefront of this evolution in the used car industry.”

He intends to simplify and speed up the process of receiving a defleeted car and getting it posted on the website.

Currently, the process takes between three and five days.

“We will simplify pre-allocation and make it quicker to get the cars on our site,” he said.

But one process that technology cannot solve is getting a vehicle’s documents. “Getting the physical documents is the primary reason cars are not listed quicker,” he said.

Once on the site, the cars will be priced using a dynamic model that accurate reflects what similar cars are achieving.

“We will use our marketplace intelligence to dynamically price the cars we sell,” said Kaser. “We will take ecommerce to the next level.”

What separates Autoquake from the traditional auction house proposition is that it sells direct to retail customers. However, that may change, although no firm plans are in place for a business-to-business sales channel that would see fleet cars sold to dealers over the internet.

“Ecommerce can easily be re-used to make offerings in B2B,” said Kaser. “We would be naive to rule that out, but right now we are concentrating on what we do best.”

The company is also expanding the services it offers – affinity and driver sales now feature.
The first fleet company has already signed up to provide affinity sales that will see it make a co-branded site available to their customers, employees, family and friends.

Autoquake is also planning to expand into Europe. Germany has been identified as the most likely first launch country.

Kaser’s skills in ecommerce will be put to the test in the development of this new model for the German market.

But he says his experience will allow him refine Autoquake’s service. “When you know what works in one industry you can apply it to other markets. By leveraging our ecommerce solution to improve website conversions, improve customer relationship management and optimise our multi-channel distribution approach, we can improve the Autoquake.com proposition still further,” he said. “Fleet remarketing is ripe with ecommerce opportunities.”