Mercedes Benz

TradeRev lets dealerships sell wholesale vehicles to other dealerships in real time. KAR Auction Services Inc. is boosting its investment in its TradeRev business as it seeks to spread the online appraisal and auction tool to as many as 100 markets across North America and eventually take it global. Through a mobile app or a desktop tool, TradeRev lets dealerships sell wholesale vehicles to other dealerships in real time. In the second quarter, 30,000 vehicles were sold through TradeRev, more than double the year-earlier period, KAR said this month. It's in just more than 30 markets in the U.S. and Canada. But those numbers are "a drop in the bucket" of what KAR executives think TradeRev can do. To that end, the company is ramping up its spending on Trade-Rev in the second half of this year, adding staffers and expanding marketing and branding efforts. The number of dealers using the platform is growing, though KAR isn't disclosing how many are signed up. "One o...