Hi,

If anyone has had any experience in the car sales industry, please reply to this. I am trying to make a car buying app and I would like as much feedback and input as possible.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Car salesman
• Worked for a Dealership/Car Company
• If you have sold your car privately before
• If you have searched the internet for a new car/ currently are

I just have some questions and would like to bounce ideas with someone who may have more knowledge. I'd also like to discuss pricing.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I’m just 17 and I’m trying to do something with my skills, so I’d appreciate any help and advice from you.

Even if you don’t have experience, but you have a neat & unique idea(s), please let me know!

I can't believe I'm considering this, but the local dealership has $50K MSRP Ariyas at $5,000 out the door through an 18-month one-pay lease through NMAC. It is down to $4,000 if your local power company has the extra EV rebate. Mine just gives $100/yr credit plus a free stage 2 charger.

If you have a Nissan store, it is worth checking to see if you can get an Ariya into some crazy lease setups.

The only reason I'm considering it is for the money.

Hello everyone,

I'm the general manager of a used car dealership with an inventory of approximately 85 cars. We're currently revisiting our pay structure for salespeople and exploring different models to enhance performance and profitability.

From my experience, I've noticed that a flat salary often leads to complacency among the sales team, which doesn’t drive the performance we’re aiming for. I am considering a model that leans more heavily towards commissions, possibly with a small base salary or draw.

I would love to hear from fellow dealership managers and industry professionals:

1. What pay structure do you use at your dealership?
2. How do you balance base pay and commissions to ensure high motivation and performance?
3. Have you implemented any unique incentives that have proven effective?
4. What challenges have you faced with your current pay plan, and how have you addressed them?

Any insights or examples of what has worked well (or not) for your dealership would be incredibly helpful as we design our new compensation strategy.

Thanks in advance for your help and sharing your experiences!

Best,

Yesterday I demoed ACV MAX (formerly Max Digital). Seemed like a decent vAuto replacement. Wondering if anyone is on it/has tried it or if anyone has experienced/demoed a similar product that they were intrigued by.

I'm always keeping my ear to the ground when it comes to new offerings in our space. I've been playing around with website chat options here in the last couple weeks and wanted to see the latest in AI chat for our sites. We currently have ActivEngage (humans) because of an "exclusive" integration with our Accelerate DR tools. We have yet to see any benefit of having an integration within the DR tool. No, I'm not putting ActivEngage on notice, just looking...

We are a DriveCentric group and adding the Drive AI chat would make a lot of sense for us right now because it is really really good BUT they have no way to direct leads to the correct XML addresses from our group or market sites. Not their fault, we run a tangled web of 14 URLs representing our 9 "stores". We have a couple of those tiny points combined within 7 business, DMS and CRM entities. We allow shoppers on any of the group or market sites to see any car at any store of their choosing so want to make sure their selection, regardless of vehicle location, goes to the store they want to do business with. This has been a challenge to make sure chat introductions starts with "select your store" for all our past providers but most have figured it out. Gubagoo and AE were able to make this happen (although it is broken right now from AE).

With that said, I'm also not convinced that human chat, that is a contracted external team, is better than 2024 AI advancements. In poking around last week, I had a Matador rep a call me back after asking where they were on AI chat (I'm not that familiar with their overall offerings). He returned my call stating they were partnering with a new entity that is new to the US, a company called Seezar. Interesting journey through projects for governments of the UAE and Europe tied to automotive. Their approach in their current offering is more than just chat but rather an AI concierge on the site. You can ask for vehicle recommendations, list out your search almost like a prompt, ask for details about a car or comparisons, etc. It returns results pretty well, conversational friendly, running OpenAI, etc. Check out the AI chat icon on BMW Retailer | Glasgow, Hamilton, Hillington & Stirling | Douglas Park and a used listing site Car Dealer | Knebworth, Hertfordshire | Carverse Here is their slide deck. Not sure they would also be able to solve the XML routing challenge we have but it was an interesting direction they were taking. I was connected with a demo (they said I was their first one in the US?) by going through Sam Villeareal at Matador [email protected] (913) 339-8647 if you want to reach out but there are direct contacts on the slide desk as well. Let me know if anyone else has seen this or taken a demo.

I have always brushed CarsForSale.com off as the company that roped dealers in with crazy cheap offers like "Free for your first 6 months, then just $99 /mo after that." A service that would get easily forgotten about and paid by your office out of habit.

But lately they've been churning out new features left and right - providing an incredible value for just $99/mo. I'm truly impressed.

Would I personally use them? No. But they make a ton of sense for small independents.

They are essentially all of these tools bundled together for $99 /mo

• Dealer.com
• Autotrader
• Homenet
• Vauto
• Vinsolutions
• DealerTrack
• Revolution Parts

Yes, for $99 /mo they include all of these features:

• CRM
• DMS
• Desking
• Website & SEO
• Inventory Management System
• Parts & Accessories E-Commerce Store
• Third Party Marketplace
• Reporting & Analytics

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are as good at websites as Dealer.com, as good at inventory management as vAuto, etc.

But we're comparing a $99 /mo tech stack to a $15,000 /mo tech stack.

I would love to see some of the legacy vendors start to release new features like this on the regular.

Not to mention their corporate office is pretty sick, apparently all of those $99's add up...


Full-size T-Rex in middle of office


NASCAR race car in lobby


CFO's bank vault office


Slide to go from 2nd to 1st floor


^ All of this in SOUTH DAKOTA

Posting this in the forum as well as Facebook and LinkedIn - What CRM are you currently using, why do you love it, and what would you change about it if you could?

Hey guys, I've been working with a dealership over in Morrisville, PA for a little while now, and I decided to take a peak into their marketing strategy to find the reason why we were having such a low walk in traffic.

Their location is extremely hidden & it's very unusual to have someone come in from just seeing our lot.

I understand it's very difficult to handle finances, manage a team, bills, inventory & etc so the last thing they want to do is handle marketing

So the problem was clear, we didn't have a good location so how would we bring more clients in?

I decided to take matters into my own hands and basically optimized their online presence to bring more people and get more appointments. And shockingly it was a great success!

We started this project late in January and the dealership went from selling 12 cars/mo to 26 in February!!

Therefore, I see many dealerships trying to do their best to make sure they are being seen and honestly the logical answer is to just get your business in front of more people.

I can share how I've done this in a video or a different thread but I was curious to know if any of you guys have considered even looking into this?

11 years later, I'm back in my happy place, back in the Lab building DISC stuff!
https://aimgroup.com/2022/08/30/pistell-resigns-as-cars-com-head-of-marketplace/

Stop by for strategy talks, prototypes and updates digging for new ways to sell MORE iron. In the spirit of the original Diary*, PLEASE challenge me and ask questions. It almost always stimulates new thoughts for me

*Uncle Joe's Diary 1.0 https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/uncle-joes-make-over-diary.1683/

Our current setup is cumbersome in that we can receive text messages through our website and the tracking numbers we use on craigslist/facebook, but I have to manually log into our website's CRM tool and forward those texts to the CRM we actually use. It will send them in the proper format, but it doesn't do it automatically.

I'm looking for a company that does call tracking and will take any incoming phone call and forward to our main dealer line or route directly to our sales ring group and the text messages will be forwarded in ADF format to the CRM as a lead.

Does it exist? Is there a better option without switching CRM/website providers

Interior photos vs. exterior photos -- which are more important?

I've noticed dealers seem to put a higher priority on exterior vehicle photos rather than interior photos. They're putting all of their exterior photos at the beginning of their scroller. I'm trying to understand why.

I recently purchased a vehicle and found myself buzzing through exterior photos just to examine the interior of the car.

Please give some opinions!

Experimenting with Gubagoo as a replacement for a couple CTAs on our site. We’ve been using Gubagoo for several years and I am hell bent on a more active CTA vs the usual mundane “get price”, “check availability” etc.. and moving towards “let’s chat”, “text us now” etc.. which Gubagoo has been great with installing for us.

Any thoughts? Active CTA vs Static CTA?

Hi all! I have an idea for a new app for marketers. In a nutshell, it will help them share their work, advertising layouts and ideas. In addition to exchange, it will offer tools for joint development of high-value advertising and marketing projects.

There are doubts about the very idea of reusing advertising materials during exchange from the point of view of non-uniqueness in b2b. Although in b2c everyone has long been using the same second-hand and secondary markets for cars, equipment, and real estate. Also, approaches to sales techniques (scripts, 5 steps of sales, etc.) have been used for a long time.

I would like to enlist some opinions from a respected audience. Please write whether the idea itself is normal in your opinion? All the mechanics for implementation have already been thought out, but I don’t want to try at random... Thank you!

I'm thrilled to introduce LVL Up Auto, the first vendor management platform for dealerships. First some quick PR stuff then I'll get into the idea and the features that came from the beta last year in the posts that follow.

LVL Up Auto empowers dealership teams to effortlessly manage, discover, and enhance their vendor relationships. The platform offers comprehensive tools for handling vendor demos, purchases, renewals, invoices, and reviews. With LVL Up, your team can seamlessly collaborate on crucial milestones, providing visibility to those who need it the most. Whether you opt for our free or premium version, LVL Up Auto is now available for all dealerships.

Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SsCdyiS5PQ



What insights can be gained when dealers consolidate all their data sources? @AlexCaradonna is bringing Targit to the United States after great success in Europe and is looking for help from interested dealers.

Unlike CDPs that focus on marketing efforts, deeper insights can be gained from "BI" technologies. BI = Business Intelligence. As dealers become increasingly sophisticated, it is time for a retail-automotive-focused BI platform to go mainstream!

Join us LIVE on Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube Friday at 1PM
Log into Facebook
DealerRefresh | LinkedIn