Looking to revamp our method of sourcing used cars

[RossS]

My dealership is trying to find a better way to source our used cars. We currently get a lot of our inventory from Enterprise and from auction, with some coming from trade-ins. But we want to get away from our dependency on the auction and Enterprise.
I don't think that we are large enough to have a dedicated "buy center" (two new dealerships and one used center on property, two small satellite used shops across town).
Has anyone had luck with a third party service like VAN? Has anyone set up a successful system not using any of the above methods?

 

[joe.pistell]

Ross,
Consider 'working' your website visitors more aggressively. You sell only 1-2% of all your website's car shoppers, there's a lot of upside here.

One Idea: We all think about delivering cars to buyers, why not offer a hassle-free appraisal at their home or work?

 

[ed.brooks]

Two words.
Service. Lane.

 

[RossS]

Ross,
Consider 'working' your website visitors more aggressively. You sell only 1-2% of all your website's car shoppers, there's a lot of upside here.

One Idea: We all think about delivering cars to buyers, why not offer a hassle-free appraisal at their home or work?

Thanks Joe, I like the appraisal at their place idea. I am going to recommend that as well as leveraging our website better for that.

 

[joe.pistell]

Ross,

Explore Ed's idea.

Two words.
Service. Lane.

​

I'd do that NOW, before the website, because the site takes a while to get done and you can attack the service lanes today!

 

[joe.pistell]

Ross,

You can farm your DMS. You can pull old sales records and create a 'call sheet'.

I created this quick draft for you with formulas:


There are 'triggers that cause ppl to trade in their car. Use the SS to look for them. In this example, I looked for NEAR 50,000 MILES as a trigger for a call. Triggers can be 'miles near 36k' etc... If you can you can look for car buyers with BIG DOWN PAYMENTS and they'll be less likely to be upside down. Have fun!

How to do it?
Have someone in your office download sales records from 2-5 yrs ago onto a spreadsheet. Find a spreadsheet jocky in your office that can create columns for

1. "# of days owned' (since purchase date)
2. 'estimated miles driven' (since purchase date)
3. Est Odo today (1+2 =3)

Hope this helps,
Joe

 

[RossS]

I agree, the service lane and and DMS need to be big focus points. I am trying to figure out the best way to incorporate the service staff into this and get them on board.

 

[Alexander Lau]

There are some great third party fixed-ops app and website providers out there.

If you've internal resources canny enough to work with WordPress, some stellar fixed-ops themes exist. Once installed, can work well for any dealer's needs (functionality and the potential for reach).