Almost 40% of initial bids on vehicles came in ‘out-of-hours’ – after 5pm and before 8am the next morning. With the rise of unpaid overtime and the rise of out-of-hours emails more managers are effectively working an extra day every week and this research bears out that staff in dealerships are doing the same.

The advent of smartphones and tablets means that working away from the office is now even easier, and statistics released by Ofcom show that over 90% of adults in the UK own a mobile-phone, with the average smart phone user checking their emails by 7.30am – before they have even gotten out of bed in the morning.

On top of this, recent figures from Auto Trader show that two thirds of their site's traffic comes from smartphones or tablets, which is why Cars Direct have renovated their website to be smart-phone and tablet compatible to meet the demand for trade buyers to easily log in and place a bid at any time of day.

Andy Brown, managing director of Cars Direct, said: “The research demonstrates how busy dealers are during the day as well as the convenience of the online format of our auctions, which means that bidders can reach us at all times of the day. Cars Direct have all the lots closing online at the same time, allowing buyers to place their bid at a time to suit them and then get on with the rest of their day.

“Trade buyers, like the rest of us, are busy people. They don’t want or have the time to spend a whole day watching a physical auction either in the hall or online just waiting for the right car to come through and Cars Direct recognises this. But even I was surprised to see that we’d received bids after midnight – this demonstrates the benefits of our new mobile and tablet friendly website.”