While celebrating its 65th anniversary, Southern Auto Auction in East Windsor, Conn., has released a new mobile website.

SAA revealed Tuesday the launch of SAA Mobile Web, which includes vehicle searches based upon year, make, model, lanes and events, condition reports and vehicle history reports, officials noted.

Larry Tribble, owner of Southern Auto Auction, said, “I am proud of the SAA Mobile Web tool. Our ability to deliver best in class technology remains a commitment of mine. I look forward to our future enhancements.”

And the company also stressed one of the most important features of the mobile tool is the SAA Alert System.

Just how does it work?

A dealer can set an alert for each vehicle to watch, and multiple automatic system generated text messages are sent to each registered phone at certain points prior to the vehicle crossing the auction block, the company explained.

Commenting on the release, Dave Chahwan of Boch Motors, expressed his enthusiasm for the new tool: “Southern Auto Auction has created a tool that is far superior in the marketplace. With an auction of the size of Southern, there are over 4,500 opportunities for me each week to purchase vehicles in 20 lanes. 

“The auction alert function allows me to set my buy plan each week and not miss any opportunities. Southern’s ability to react and to deliver to what dealers want is very clear in this mobile web product.  Being an independent auction allows Southern to integrate suggestions that dealers offer to enhance their user experience,” he continued.

Professional buyer Scott Theriault, who was also a part of the dealer advisory board during the development of the mobile tool, also had good things to say about SAA Mobile Web, noting, “One of the great things about this tool and Southern remains their commitment to listening to their customers.  SAA hits the mark with their dealer tools 99.9 percent of the time, but they are always asking me ‘How can we improve?’  Each time I offer some ideas, they make those ideas happen immediately.”

And the company is not done developing the tool, officials noted.

Future enhancements include “additional vehicle history reports, buyer workflow alerts, seller announcements and vehicle registration capabilities,” the company explained.

Lastly, Mike Penda, director of IT for SAA, gave his take on the new tool, as well as the reasoning behind the release: “Our goal was to consult with dealers, ask which features are useful and to develop a tool that was clean, functional, and gave dealers exactly what they need to make buying decisions at SAA.  We feel that we hit the mark.

“The overall look and feel of our Mobile Web platform is similar to our full website at www.saa.com. When we were in our development stage, we were often asked, ‘When are you going to get an app?’ After much research and development, we made the conscious decision to not develop an app, but rather to create a mobile web page that incorporates real time updates without any need to continually download changes. Each time we enhance our web page, dealers will see it the next time they log on. Spend more time buying and less time updating.  And best of all, our mobile web page is free to all registered dealers at SAA,” he concluded.