Dietmar Köcher, Fleet Director of Karstadt Quelle AG, has his hands full. 1,800 business vehicles of the Karstadt department stores, Quelle GmbH, neckermann.de and a number of smaller subsidiaries need to be managed. And above all they require successful marketing when they are taken out of service. Initially Karstadt Quelle AG had the cars valued via DEKRA and then looked for buyers themselves. Later the company decided to use the services of AUTOonline, whom they already knew from their accident vehicle business. "One of the major arguments for selecting AUTOonline was the fact that this offers us an audit-proof transaction. Although my staff still need to supervise certain procedures, this follows a regulated workflows. Another important aspect in favour of AUTOonline is the elimination of direct and personal contact with the bidders."

 

KarstadtQuelle estimates that the time spent on processes was successfully reduced from at least two hours per vehicle for marketing the vehicles themselves to one hour for using online marketing.

 

However, the DEKRA still remains the partner of choice for the the vehicle defleet process, since its decentralised structures enable the organisation to send out local experts to the vehicle locations.After looking at the original vehicle documents, which might provide information on potential past damages, the DEKRA experts use the existing data to determine the estimated value and use a direct, fully automated process to enter all relevant data in electronic format on the AUTOonline platform; in parallel they provide us with their assessment of the vehicle's condition. Once the car has been advertised online the process is taken over by us again.

 

AUTOonline has set certain standards for its customer Karstadt:The bid time is always a period of five days and the vehicles are advertised anonymously so that the vehicle's owner cannot be inferred. Then the authorised fleet manager of KarstadtQuelle AG chooses the highest bidder, the buyer organises delivery and deregistration of the purchased vehicles and takes care of the removal of fitted foils or adhesive stickers.

 

The KarstadtQuelle fleet consists of a variety of German brands. It is divided into four user groups, from vehicles for board members to frequent car users and pool cars. According to Dietmar Köcher the majority of vehicles is at least four years old and has done a minimum of 124,247 miles. "It became quite clear that the valuations by DEKRA were in line with the market; associated AUTOonline dealers often offer 30 - 35% more, in many cases even more", Dietmar Köcher rejoices.

 

The surplus far exceeds what we achieved with our previous marketing method.

 

Another advantage KarstadtQuelle sees for itself it the fact that the vehicles are offered to dealers all over Germany, using the internet.That way the bids are not subject to regional price differences which may arise in cases of local auctions.

 

AUTOonline is not a conventional auction platform.

 

The vehicles are offered via a bid system, which leaves the fleet manager with enough time after expiry of the bid period to decide whether or not he wishes to sell the vehicle to an AUTOonline dealer or not. The decision rests entirely with the offeror of the vehicles. The bidder himself is unable to see competing bids when submitting his own. He is therefore not influenced in any way and can submit the offer that is most sensible according to his assessment and his economical situation. He will not see the -anonymised - highest bid or his own bid until after expiry of the bid deadlines. At present 1,000 active car dealers are connected to the AUTOonline platform. In 2004 they traded over 400,000 vehicles. Each dealer admitted by AUTOonline is screened thoroughly, from his official registration to his business practices and his creditworthiness. AUTOonline immediately punishes any misconduct. That is something that KarstadtQuelle appreciates: "We register with a controlled network which means we do not conclude deals with just anybody, because access to the data is not open to just anyone.

 

Great and true. Saving costs and increasing sales revenues.

 

KarstadtQuelle looks back on not just an overall increase in sales revenues but also, and primarily, cost savings trough standardised procedures including data import for each interface.