Like Super Dispatch, BacklotCars set out to disrupt a long-standing part of the automotive industry. With Super Dispatch focused on modernizing automotive logistics, BacklotCars is focused on modernizing automotive wholesale.
Four years ago, founders Justin Davis and Josh Parsons were working at Manheim Auctions. They saw a broken system limited access to inventory, capital and inefficient transport.
Justin and Josh created BacklotCars, as an alternative to brick and mortar auctions. BacklotCars is connecting dealers across the United States and quickly becoming the easiest way for stores to both source, sell, transport and finance wholesale inventory. Both Super Dispatch and BacklotCars continue to disrupt long-standing industries.
Justin and Josh created BacklotCars, as an alternative to brick and mortar auctions.
How BacklotCars is different
“Originally, most dealers would go to local auctions to buy and sell cars. What we did was turn it into an online marketplace, without the physical location,” Sean, the Director of Transportation said to Super Dispatch. “This allows them to purchase inventory outside of their particular region. So for example, if I’m in Kansas City, I’m not limited to the local auction. I can purchase cars across the country.”
As BacklotCars opens up new trade opportunities for dealers, transportation becomes important. That’s where Super Dispatch comes in.
BacklotCars runs auto transport different than traditional load boards and auctions because of the technology it utilizes. Now auto dealers across the country can transact without stepping foot on an auction floor, or worrying about transporting their purchases.
As BacklotCars opens up new trade opportunities for dealers, transportation becomes important. That’s where Super Dispatch comes in.
Changing the game of auto transport
Before Super Dispatch, employees at BacklotCars would have to manually enter everything into spreadsheets. Sean had to type VIN numbers, condition reports, instructions, delivery and pick up information into their backend system and then post vehicles as loads on the Central Dispatch load board. A single morning’s worth of car sales could take a business day to type and post online for car transportation companies to find.
Before Super Dispatch, employees at BacklotCars would have to manually enter everything into spreadsheets.
“If we sold 50 cars a day, we would manually enter them on the load board or send them over to our partners using spreadsheets,” Sean said. “Which as you can imagine, is very time consuming. So sometimes the car that sold at 8 am wouldn’t get posted and shipped out maybe for a day.”
How BacklotCars ships cars in wholesale
Before Super Dispatch helped BacklotCars post loads and match carriers, auto transportation could take 10-14 days. With Super Dispatch, 80% of loads dispatched through Backlot are delivered in less than seven days, and 65% are delivered in less than five.
The BacklotCars sales team has successfully leveraged the reduced transport time to appeal to a wider range of customers.
“In sales when they’re promoting, they say ‘Hey, we can get your cars to you in 3-4 days.’ That’s a big promotion for people that are in our buy space,” Sean said.
That’s because Super Dispatch cuts their manual work in half by integrating with BacklotCars backend marketplace technology. Now, they only need to enter information for a car once in their own system. Once that car is sold, its information is sent to Super Dispatch through the seamless API integration.
Super Dispatch cuts their manual work in half by integrating with BacklotCars backend marketplace technology.
From there, the BacklotCars team organizes the individual vehicles and send load offers to preferred carriers within their network.
It just auto-posts everything the minute [a car] sells, because it’s already out there we shoot it straight over to Super Dispatch.
The connection to the API means that BacklotCars can offer loads to trusted carriers without ever calling them – instead, the carrier gets a text and email with the load information, which they can choose to accept.
If a load can’t be taken by their preferred carrier, they can still avoid the cumbersome load-posting process on Central Dispatch.Super Dispatch API makes it easy to post to Central Dispatch when you need.
The connection to the API means that BacklotCars can offer loads to trusted carriers without ever calling them.
Also, the logistics team can easily determine if a car was damaged in transport by reviewing the electronic Bill of Lading and inspection photos. Plus they can give ETAs to customers when loads are automatically marked as picked up or delivered.
“First thing I do every morning is I track vehicles that are assigned to specific carriers. Let’s say they were supposed to be picked up over the weekend, let’s say there was an issue and it didn’t get picked up, I see that,” Sean says of the Super Dispatch dispatching tool. “So we can communicate that quickly with our customers.”
What’s next for BacklotCars?
Because Sean and Julie no longer spend their entire day posting loads to load boards, they can focus on other things; expanding their transport region, optimizing trade routes and creating carrier contacts.
“On the accounting side we went from about 9 hours of paperwork to about 15 minutes,” Sean said. “As far as the load posting, if we had 50 cars to post, I would post from when I got to work to when I left.”
“I did other things in between, but most of that time I spent posting. Now I don’t post anything. It’s out there already. I’m able to look at new routes, create partnerships with new carriers. Things like that.”
In the next year, Backlot hopes to reduce 80% of their loads to a 5 day turnover time.
Super Dispatch is planning big things for 2019 as well.
Eventually, Super Dispatch will be an end-to-end unified vehicle shipping platform for car haulers, shippers and brokers, which will enable better communication throughout the entire industry.
In the near future, Super Dispatch will become the largest vehicle shipping platform – for brokers, carriers and shippers alike. The largest network of car haulers, shippers brokers will be available in Super Dispatch’s Broker and Carrier TMS. Through tools like our Smart LoadBoard and Carrier Vetting, our platform will automate, digitize and provide visibility into the entire vehicle shipping process, all within one system.
Eventually, Super Dispatch will be an end-to-end unified vehicle shipping platform for car haulers, shippers and brokers, which will enable better communication throughout the entire industry.
