When your used car inventory needs to be re-stocked, there are only so many places you can turn for quick, cost-efficient cars. Whether your dealership’s turnover is greater than projected or you’re having a hard time closing trade-ins, you need a reliable source of pre-owned inventory to meet your goals. If you’ve ever been in this situation, you’ve probably relied on a wholesale auction to fill in those empty spaces on your lot.
If you work at a car dealership in 2016, you’re in a good place. The most recent NADA Data Report says that “the past six years have been the longest period of new-vehicle sales growth since the 1920s,” and this year’s outlook shows the trend continuing.
Here are some of the milestones attached to that assessment:
- Total dealership revenue across all stores in the US reached a new high of $862 billion in 2015, a 6.9 percent increase over 2014.
- Franchised new-car dealerships sold more than 17.3 million new cars and light trucks.
- Average selling price of a new car/light truck: $33,419 (2.5 percent increase over 2014)
- Average selling price of cars from used vehicle inventory: $19,397 (2.9% increase over 2014)
Perhaps more exciting than growth for the auto industry is growth for local economies. Almost 150 new dealerships opened in the past year, and more than 1.1 million people were on a car dealership’s payroll. That’s a 4.3 percent increase over 2014. Dealerships employed 67 people on average last year.
These numbers are compelling, and they say good things about the health of the auto industry overall, but we know that dealers are always looking to do better. Where is the next big opportunity?
The idea of a “product expert” gets worked into a lot of our blogs and company literature. We like to frame it as the end goal to many of our services. If you take full advantage of the software we offer, you and your sales team can all become product experts. That’s what we want you to get out of a partnership with MAXDigital.
What we don’t want is for this notion to become just another buzzword, so let’s take a moment to talk about what a product expert does and how to become a product expert.
Today, savvy car shoppers do most of their research before they stop by your showroom. They narrow down a selection of cars they want, investigate trim levels and feature lists, and carefully consider option packages. Customers want to figure out the mental math behind a vehicle’s price tag before ever hopping in for a test drive.
Now more than ever, the importance of pricing awareness hits home not just with consumers but with dealerships.
As consumer behavior evolves, so too must that of salespeople. Executing precision in the pricing of a vehicle is becoming a critical step in closing the deal. There are three major reasons why car dealerships must be extra careful with the way they price their vehicles.
The car-buying process has moved online. Most customers are doing research on a combination of OEM, third party, and dealership websites. Once they visit a dealership, they spend time showrooming, comparing the cars on your lot to your competition across town.
If you want to adapt to the digital age, protect your margins, and stop the drop, you’ve come to the right place. MAXDigital is the only provider that can help you improve your sales process every step of the way. Our software and tools use real-time data to bolster your acquisition, pricing, merchandising, and sales procedures.
Learn more about our solutions here, or schedule a demo for any of our products. Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions about how MAXDigital can help you.
When you’re doing car appraisals for your pre-owned inventory, you likely have two goals:
- Acquire cars your customers want to buy
- Reinforce your bottom line
Further simplified, you’re looking for the right car at the right price. How can you guarantee that these goals are in line with one another? Those are two birds just waiting to be taken care of with a single stone, but you need the proper tools and strategy if you want to pull it off.
MAXDigital offers just the solution you need: an exclusive Cost-to-Market Appraisal tool that lets your dealership effectively leverage data.
Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by cost-to-market appraisal and why it’s vital to your success in the digital age of car-shopping.
Smartphones have changed the way car dealerships have to think about merchandising their inventory. We’ve spoken at length about how modern car buyers engage in the practice of showrooming at your dealership. It’s a fact that as many as two-thirds of your customers are comparing your inventory to one of your direct competitors while standing on your lot.
Chicago, Illinois – July 18, 2016 – In a continued effort to bring transparency to the online car shopping experience, MAXDigital, a leading auto retail SaaS provider, today announced a partnership with CarGurus, a leading car shopping platform. The partnership provides MAXDigital’s MAX Ad users the ability to advertise their vehicle inventory on CarGurus for free, MAX Ad’s industry leading optimized format, consumer-friendly vehicle descriptions.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but how much is it worth to your car dealership? If you’re not staying on top of vehicle photos for your inventory, you might be costing yourself leads or worse.
Fortunately, we know an easy way to make sure every car on your lot has a current picture online. First you might be wondering why it’s so important to upload vehicle images to your website. We’ll talk about why you want to get in this habit, when and where you should take pictures of your cars, and how to upload them with zero hassle.
Your car dealership can’t stick to the same old playbook if it wants to protect its profit margin. The digital era has changed the game, and customers are already playing without you. If you can’t adapt to using real-time data in your sales process, you’re looking at a shutout.
