BMW Financial Services has made its BMWGroupDirect.com service accessible to independent and non-BMW franchise dealers, in preparation for the increase in off-lease vehicle inventory, the company announced Monday.
“BMWGroupDirect.com was created out of the necessity for our franchise partners to gain exclusive access to our inventory before it was offered to the wholesale buying community,” Nina Englert, vice president of sales and marketing at BMWFS, said in the release. However, BMWFS needed to take its upstream remarketing program “to the next level” due to more off-lease inventory entering the market, she added.
The website was previously open to BMW franchise dealers only, but it now gives any valid AuctionACCESS account holder online access to BMW’s national off-lease vehicle inventory, according to the release. However, the program will continue to offer franchise dealers exclusive access to BMW Group company vehicles, via closed sales.
BMWGroupDirect — powered by RMS Automotive’s web-based vehicle portfolio management solution — is meant to simplify the user experience with several intuitive features, including the ability to set up saved searches, as well as alert dealers when specific inventory becomes available. Additionally, the remarketing site offers factory VIN coding to allow dealers to search packages based on original build information from the plant, and — given the site’s open platform — dealers no longer have to reserve time to attend on-site or online auctions.
“Dealers can see our off-lease inventory across multiple auction locations, making it an efficient way to source our vehicles,” Englert added. “As the shift from traditional auction to online sales channels continues to grow, this will become an increasingly important value-add to dealers.”
Since the site’s launch in June 2015, more than 450 BMW and MINI franchise dealers — as well as 50 VIP independent dealers and wholesale buyers — have sourced, bid on, and purchased vehicles through BMWGroupDirect.
