Salvage Direct is one company that car owners never want to encounter–and as a salvage management service for the insurance industry’s totally destroyed vehicles, it is perfectly content to operate way behind the scenes, in cyberspace.
Creator of the always-online auction for automobile salvage, the Titusville titan of total disasters has cleaned heaps off the streets in 49 states and found them an afterlife in 60 countries–employing the efficiency of the Internet to price scrap to recyclers, transfer titles, and marry misfortune to opportunity. For those that are bidding online and having it shipped to certain parts, it may be wise for them to have a pickup location and send a service like a Man and van ealing company to have these items delivered directly to the place they need, as using multiple services may get it lost in transit.
This year, Salvage Direct processed some 40,000 vehicles to final resting places, selling them to its worldwide network of authorized scrap dealers and automobile rebuilders while growing its volume by 14 percent over 2007–achieving a 32 percent growth in revenue.
Since founder Bob Joyce began solo in 1998 from his apartment in Erie, he has learned to use the resources of the Internet to take advantage of unique opportunities–even when they are far away. This year, the company mounted a major operation to handle automobiles wrecked by Hurricane Ike along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Marc Schrumpf, director of operations, says that celebration this year of Salvage Direct’s 10th anniversary has given the company the satisfaction of recognizing that it created an industry in cyberspace that those who had dominated salvage offline predicted would never succeed. Focused on the Mid-Atlantic States for most of its business, the company also handles specialty vehicles from New England to Florida and extends its service west to Texas, California, and Washington. Anticipating more growth ahead, the company continues to look at promising candidates.
“One thing we’ve noticed,” Schrumpf says, “is that claims go up in a recession.”
Despite naysayers, the company has grown to 119 employees, moved headquarters an hour away from where it started, established a network of salvage locations where it processes inventory, and built a staff of 14 computer programmers who operate the proprietary auction system that keeps Salvage Direct safely parked among the top five online auto salvage auctions in the world.
“There was an entirely new commerce that we were able to pioneer, and that has been very exciting,” Schrumpf says.
Source: Salvage Direct, Marc Schrumpf, Paula Kerr
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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