Time Has Come: Smart phone inventory management systems

There’s a lengthy Malcolm Gladwell article in the May 2008 edition of The New Yorker entitled “Annuals of Innovation: In the Air—Who says big ideas are rare?” that chronicles how great ideas are often “discovered” simultaneously in what science historians call “multiples” and, turns out the phenomenon is very common.

The lengthy article details how a need or problem, technology and solutions tend to present themselves to people at the same time, and that’s just where we in the used-car industry find ourselves right now with handheld devices for valuing and buying wholesale inventory for our lots and getting them marketed online.

Over the past 14 years, there have been two or three companies who have marketed a variety of solutions for electronically valuing vehicles, getting detailed VIN and vehicle history information. They have met with varying degrees of success, but in the past six months at least five companies, some start-ups and some existing firms, have developed purpose-built devices or smart phone software to solve the problems of getting fast, detailed and accurate vehicle information for use by dealers.

Among these firms are AutoRevo, Autoniq, VINHunter and VINViper. Each has its own unique solution that solves a problem dealers, auction buyers and sales managers have dealt with since the first trade-in was taken in at a dealership—what is the wholesale value of vehicle and how much can I mark it up when I resell it?

George Heppe, CEO of Gigglepop.com, has been attacking this problem since 1996. His services provides the mobile tools dealers use to build inventory and buy with confidence. He is often credited with being a pioneer, but dealers, at least at the outset, were slow to adopt the technology.

Jason Seligman, president of VINViper.com, based in South Carolina, has 11 years experience in the automotive industry where he developed and eventually sold an Internet automotive marketing company. After attending an auto auction with a friend about 18 months ago, he was amazed at how antiquated the technology most buyers used. Dealers thumbed through guidebooks they had stuffed into back pockets and were calling the office to have someone look at values or run a Carfax on a vehicle.

Richard Brown, president of VINHunter, an Ohio-based firm, had a huge database of older model VIN information as a result of another business. Last June he created an app for relatively simple VIN explosions for the iPhone. Apple approved it and he was soon offering it for $4.99 to consumers. He issued a press release, received a call from the used vehicle trade press and soon after he began working on VINHunter Pro, with a variety of features much more palatable for auto dealers.

Thomas Marr, president of Autoniq, based in Virginia, has more than 20 years of developing and launching sophisticated consumer electronic products including TiVo. He said when he first heard about the needs of dealers and wholesalers and understanding the capabilities of smart phone technology, he knew the disruptive innovation of smart phones and other devices could provide critical, real-time decision making information to automobile dealers at an affordable cost.

Chad Polk, president of AutoRevo.com, an Internet Marketing Platform, has been solving technology issues for dealers for more than six years. His firm initially offered auto dealers a more proficient method of listing and managing their inventory on eBay Motors. The company’s product offering soon grew to include search engine optimized dealer Web sites, a robust inventory management system, used vehicle inventory integration with any online classified vendor, a market pricing tool, a lead management system and advanced reporting analytics.

Today, for their more than 800 clients, the firm has a mobile inventory management system for the iPhone platform.

Each firm offers a variety of services, and no two are exactly alike. For instance, the AutoRevo system is currently available only for its clients These clients can, however, use the AutoRevo iPhone App to get detailed VIN information, take photos and video of their vehicles, use the phone’s camera to “scan” in a VIN barcode, add and manage inventory and run a Carfax vehicle history report.

Polk said because of the integration with the AutoRevo platform, dealers can list a car on their web site or post it to eBay Motors, Craigslist or AutoTrader as soon as the vehicle is purchased at auction.

“You can have the vehicle posted on your site before you’ve even paid for it.,” Polk said. “Of course, once back at the dealership, more photos can be taken to more properly market the vehicle to the consumer, but why not get the vehicle posted with as much information as you can as soon as you can?”

AutoRevo Mobile comes free with most packages offered by AutoRevo. Polk said that there are plans to make the application available to those not on the AutoRevo platform down the

road.

Autoniq’s VIN Scanner and subscription service is not only available for the iPhone 3GS with AT&T, but, is also available on the Android smart phones used on the Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile networks. Plus, the Autoniq subscription service is available without the VIN scanner on other smart phones. Autoniq provides instant access to Black Book Daily, Kelley Blue Book, NADA, and Galves pricing guides, and full CARFAX and AutoCheck vehicle history reports. Autoniq’s Market Report includes transactions from every major auction in the United States.

Gigglepop’s service includes using handheld devices like the PalmPre and others to put buyers in contact with information from Black Book, NADA Guides, Kelley Blue Book and other market reports. The service also includes auction run lists from ADESA Auctions, Columbus Fair Auto Auction and Southern Auto Auction. Heppe plans expanding services to Internet-based devices like the iPhone and others very soon.

VINViper, uses a proprietary handheld device (which is also a phone) that has a laser scanner (and full keyboard) that can collect VIN barcode information directly from the vehicle. Results are displayed on the handheld in less than 5 seconds and provides instant, real-time values from its data providers. The device is a PDA that runs Windows Mobile 5.0. Users also will also have the functionality to login in to VINViper.com to pull VIN’s, review recent online and scanned searches, print and e-mail results. Data providers will include: Manheim Market Report, Black Book, Kelley Blue Book, NADAGuides, Autotrader.com, Carfax, Autocheck (and Galves for certain markets). VINViper will be $200 - $400 per month, depending on the data providers selected and the full|

roll out will occur with-in the next 90 days.

VINHunter Pro was launched in late January. This iPhone App gives dealers access to detailed VIN information, CARFAX, Black Book Daily, and NADA information from their Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The application is available today for free in the Apple App Store.