In buying hundreds of cars each week to fuel the inventory for their six Indiana stores, Travis Baldwin knows the odds are not that every vehicle purchased will pass inspection to get to the front line.
For those vehicles that don’t pass muster and head back to the arbitration process, the veteran dealer is working on streamlining the process with his new venture, Dealer Defender.
Along with creating a single site to handle arbitrations, the new digital platform is a place to identify problem vehicles and report fraudulent purchasers.
Getting perspective: Best Auto Sales in Indiana, where Baldwin is vice president, has been in business since 2007.
The dealership sources vehicles from across the nation.
It sources 70% of its inventory from the lanes.
“It becomes a real chore to keep track of all of our vehicles and communicating with all the auctions on where we are in the arbitration process,” Baldwin told CDG News.
Bringing transparency to the process: Today’s buyers have several tools to know the price and vehicle history before they get to the lot.
Similarly, Baldwin wants to add the same transparency on the wholesale side when acquiring a vehicle.
“We're really trying to bridge that gap, and we believe that transparency can exist in a wholesale environment.”
Providing a solution: With the Dealer Defender platform, Baldwin explained, they wanted to simplify the arbitration process.
Claims are made straight from the site.
Status updates are received similar to text messages throughout the process.
If an arbitration is successful, vehicle information will be public for all subscribers.
What they’re saying: “We can see this one had trouble with the engine, and it got sent back to the auction,” Baldwin said. “The seller of that vehicle can come on Dealer Defender and reply to that. If an issue has been resolved and they’d like it to have a clean bill of health now, they can also share that information…It’s really collaborating with everybody involved with this vehicle and making sure that we have the most transparent marketplace.”
Identifying fraudsters: The site is also a way for dealers and lenders to share information about purchasers showing up with stolen identities, fake IDs, or fraudulent documents.
Email blasts will warn dealers about fraudulent activity in certain areas.
“It’s built by a dealer that’s been through it, seen it all, and taken the losses,” Baldwin said.
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For dealers: Baldwin is offering 1,000 dealers the opportunity to join as beta users and provide feedback on how to tweak the platform to speed up the arbitration process.
“Anytime that an auction is unwinding a sale, that’s a big deal. It can take time. It’s about at least a week's process to work through that,” Baldwin said. “We’re looking to cut that down.”
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