
Millions of motorheads or car enthusiasts love to buy salvage cars just so they can rebuild them in their own way. You always found this type of individuals buying cars from salvage vehicle auctions held by insurance companies or dealers. However, with the advent of salvage car auction app development, the scenario has completely changed.
Salvage car auction apps like Copart have made the whole process like a knife through butter. Such apps allow people to attend the auction, bid on, and win the bid virtually, easily from any mobile device. Speaking of Copart, it’s a Dallas-based global online vehicle auction operator with over 200 physical locations worldwide. From insurance companies, banks and financial institutions, vehicle dealers, charities, fleet operators, government agencies to rental car companies sell their vehicles at Copart auctions.
The brand also offers a range of remarketing services to sell and process salvage and clean title trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, boats, etcetera vehicles to dealers, demolishers, exporters, and rebuilders. To your surprise, Copart was the first to develop a salvage car auction application to unify and support the growing business. They call it VB (Virtual Bidding) technology and keep updating their online auction platform.
Copart mobile app lets users search for vehicles they want and be part of auctions virtually from anywhere around the world. Users can browse their search results in list form or on a map conveniently. It facilitates new users to register on the app to save time and be updated about deals & auctions. The app is incredibly time-saver and fruitful for dealers and consumers.
If you deal in the same segment, you should build a salvage car auction application like Copart to expand your business reach. And if you do so, first, you need to understand salvage car auction app development. There is a lot more despite hiring mobile app developers. Let us show you.

How To Develop A Salvage Car Auctions App Like Copart?
The salvage car auctions app development like Copart cycle consists of significant brainstorming and iterative phases. The development process’s breakdown streamlines the coding and mobile app design process by ensuring everyone is on the same page.
Idea Exchange
It all starts with understanding the concept and its market need. At this stage, you research the market and/or create a proof of concept to see if the idea is feasible. It is crucial to verify market demand, business needs, and customer behaviors before going any further.
Project Requirements
Next, you have to draft the core functionality and features required to operate online auctions on a mobile application. The stage is very delicate as developers code and designers design the application based on the project requirements you provide. Hence, it must be documented explicitly and clear how the application will work.
Moreover, the Copart auction platform made its debut on the iOS platform first. And they launched the Android version of the app later on. So, the point is, it’s up to you which platform to target first or both simultaneously.
App Prototyping
Prototyping your car auction application makes you a smart entrepreneur as it saves a lot of time and effort. Further, you make changes in the user interface or experience design quickly before developing the application. Above all, you can present it to your stakeholders to get funded or end-users to get feedback.
Design
At this phase, you finalize the app design, create a logo, verify screen resolution, and other practices that fall into visual designing and contribute to your auction app development.
Android/iOS & Backend Development
During this stage, developers write code and create a robust backend to implement the functionality you define in the project requirements. They use platform-specific technologies, a cloud system, a database, and other required APIs to create secure, rapid, and bug-free mobile apps.
Read more to understand Backend Mobile App Development.
Testing, Deployment, & Maintenance
Not a single piece of software goes live without double assuring its quality. You need to onboard a quality analyst to run various automated tests and ascertain the app is bug-free. Then you can peacefully deploy the app on the app store and keep measuring the performance.

Features To Make The Best Salvage Car Auction App Like Copart
To make an app like Copart car auction, you need to focus on the user experience drives by its features and functionality. By leveraging mobile device’s built-in functions such as camera, microphone, location, Bluetooth, etcetera, you can offer a great user experience. Noteworthy, you must pick app features wisely as the more features, the higher the cost to build a salvage car auctions app like Copart becomes.
Key Features For Car Auction Mobile App
Bidder Dashboard
Sign Up / Sign In
Member Profile
Find Vehicles
Vehicle Categories & Subcategories
Saved Searches
Add Vehicle To Watchlist
Host / Join Auctions
Auction Calendar
Start / End Time Blocks
Auto Incremental Bidding Option
Auction Goal Amount
360 Image Viewer
Shipping Estimate
Similar Vehicle Auctions Recommendations
Tracking - Winning And Losing Bids
Multiple Payment Options
Speaking of the cost to develop a salvage car auctions app, then there are many factors you want to consider.
Factors Affecting The Cost To Develop An App Like Copart
- Complexity and the number of app features
- Back-end infrastructure and connected APIs
- The complexity of UX/UI design
- Inclusion of additional branded visual elements
- Development approach (native, mobile web, hybrid, etc.)
- Numbers of platforms to be developed (iOS, Android, web, etc.)
Learn more about how these factors cause variation in the cost of app development.
Conclusion
Mobile Technology is changing the world at a great pace, and Copart is one of the contributors to the salvage car auction market. Besides, adopting mobile app development has become a new mainstream for entrepreneurs to operate the whole business virtually. Car buying & selling has never been so simple before this customer and business-friendly technological advancement.
If you have a revolutionary app idea, don’t sit back; tell us. We help startups to large-scale enterprises leverage innovative mobile technology.
Want to Make automobile auction app?
Sanjay Kidecha
CMO