Florida firms fight for auto supremacy on Web

By JEFF HARRINGTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 24, 1999

Two Florida companies are competing to be in the driver's seat as the World Wide Web revs up as the auto showroom of the future.

AutoAuction, a Haines City company that brings thousands of dealers into Florida for car auctions, plans to launch live auctions on the Web for car dealers this fall and for individuals later in the year.

"We'll sign up dealers starting in central Florida first, then go nationwide," John Trusty, president of AutoAuction.com, said Wednesday.

The news came a day after AutoNation, the largest auto retailer in the world, picked Tampa as a test market for a new Internet sales technique: combining all dealers in one market into a single, online sales network.

Browsers will be able to simultaneously cybershop at 17 AutoNation dealers in Tampa Bay through autonationdirect.com within a few weeks. Once the concept is tweaked, the Fort Lauderdale company plans to roll it out nationwide by Oct. 1.

Until now, individual AutoNation dealers have sold cars through their own Web sites, but there has not been a single site for all dealers in a given market.

Through those individual sites, AutoNation dealers have sold about $350-million worth of vehicles since September, spokesman Scott Mall said. He projected Internet auto sales to grow to $750-million through 1999 and $3-billion a year by 2001.

AutoNation claims its new site will be superior to current car-buying Web sites such as autobytel.com and autoweb.com, which act as lead generators to connect a buyer and dealer. AutoNation, as a dealer, cuts out the middleman.

AutoAuction, likewise, says its site will have an advantage over the current crop in that it can arrange for cash for trade-ins.

But AutoAuction also admits it has some bugs to work out. For one, it still is negotiating to buy rights to the name "autoauction.com" from someone who paid to reserve the name for Internet use, apparently intending to cash out at a profit. Trusty said he is confident of reaching a deal. Until then, his company is testing its service at www.o-c-s.com/autoauction.

In touting its Web effort, AutoAuction claims a distinct advantage over AutoNation in particular: "While AutoNation's Web sites are targeting only 400 dealers in the U.S. and many fewer in the Tampa and Clearwater areas, AutoAuction.com will target about 30,000 new and used car dealers around the U.S. and will eventually be opened up to individuals in most U.S. states."

AutoNation objects to the comparison, describing the two companies as totally different in size and scope.

AutoNation is the largest publicly traded company in Florida and is on track to be a $30-billion company by 2001. AutoAuction deals with about 2,000 dealers around the country and moves about 15,000 vehicles a year through auctions in Haines City and Melbourne.

"I just don't see us being competitive in any great degree. They may target 30,000 dealers, but that doesn't mean they'll have them," Mall said.

"But at the same time," he said, "there is a lot of room for competition on the Internet. So more power to them."

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