At Manheim, physical auctions will not return within weeks, or even months, if Cox Automotive CEO Sandy Schwartz's comments during Automotive News' "Congress Conversations" series last month are any indication.
"For at least the rest of this year, I certainly hope we don't sell any cars through a lane," he said.
While acknowledging that digital-only sales could be a difficult change for some, Schwartz said they are nonetheless safer and more efficient.
Looking further into the future, Hallett noted that Amazon has a massive physical logistics and distribution chain but is driven by a purely online format.
"That's the way the world's going. And I think as you speak to things like safety and you think about efficiency and you think about the things that you can do with digital, you don't have to have one sale a week. You can have a sale every single day," Hallett said.
"You can have a sale from multiple locations. You can sell from multiple sellers from multiple locations. ...
"The opportunity to really scale your inventory across the entire nation is really unlimited with the use of technology."