DMS recommendation that integrates well with financial lenders

[Mustafa92]

Hi,

I'm a new dealer based in Connecticut, i have a few question i hope you can help me with.

DMS Options:

1- Dealer center: i like the fact that they provide Westlake finance as well as a few other options for financing BUT the monthly subscription fee is about 350$ if i would utilize them for my website and everything.

2- Carsforsales DMS Offered me DMS and website for only 99$ a month BUT they don't offer any integration with any lenders.

Is it vital to connect the lenders to the DMS directly ?

I'm looking for recommendations from other dealerships of which DMS has worked best for your companies.

JD Book or Blue Book:

Does anybody have any insight on subscribing to JD book (70$ a month), i'm wondering if it's worth the cost.

Advertising :

I was planning to use Cargurus , does anybody have any feedback on them or recommend a different platform ?


Thank you in advance.

Mustafa

 

[Anron]

Hey Mustafa, I’m fairly new as well, but I wanted to share my two cents based on what I’ve learned so far.

Right now, I’m using both DealerCenter and Carsforsale. I actually prefer the website options from Carsforsale, so I’m in the process of moving my main website there, but I’m still keeping DealerCenter for now, least while I have a better understanding with Carsforsale.
Also Carsforsale exposure is too good to pass up for me. 99$ a month is a price you cannot beat.

For connecting directly with lenders, Dealertrack or RouteOne might be what you’re looking for. It definitely makes things easier. I usually take my customer’s info no matter where it came from enter it into Dealertrack, and then send it to multiple lenders from there. You can do something similar with DealerCenter as well. When you connect with lenders, they’ll typically ask whether you want to connect through Dealertrack or RouteOne with your DMS. After that, I continue the process on each lender’s own portal if needed.

From what I can tell, Carsforsale can also connect with dealertrack and route one. So might save you from the dealercenter directly.

As for valuations, I personally use J.D. Power values only. I’m not sure if that’s the perfect approach, but so far it’s been working for me and gives me a good baseline.

I’m also using CarGurus. Just be aware that they will keep trying to upsell you into bigger exposure & mile packages. I tried a larger package once, and honestly, it didn’t make any noticeable difference for me. Just a waste of money. Might be different for your market, maybe not. My prices are cheaper then everyone in the area by a big margin so I’m always on the first page anyway so might be why.

For marketing, I highly recommend Facebook and Google. Make sure your vehicles are listed and stay active. I don’t have any advanced ad strategy yet I’m still experimenting but posting daily and interacting with people has been producing results for me so far.

Hope this helps a little!

Emre

 

[fibac]

Hi,

I'm a new dealer based in Connecticut, i have a few question i hope you can help me with.

DMS Options:

1- Dealer center: i like the fact that they provide Westlake finance as well as a few other options for financing BUT the monthly subscription fee is about 350$ if i would utilize them for my website and everything.

2- Carsforsales DMS Offered me DMS and website for only 99$ a month BUT they don't offer any integration with any lenders.

Is it vital to connect the lenders to the DMS directly ?

I'm looking for recommendations from other dealerships of which DMS has worked best for your companies.

JD Book or Blue Book:

Does anybody have any insight on subscribing to JD Book ($70 a month), as some users have shared their experiences on https://acima.pissedconsumer.com/review.html, and I’m wondering if it’s worth the cost?

Advertising :

I was planning to use Cargurus , does anybody have any feedback on them or recommend a different platform ?


Thank you in advance.

Mustafa

Integrating lenders with your DMS isn’t strictly required, but it streamlines financing and saves time if you plan to handle many deals. JD Power/Blue Book subscriptions can be worth it for accurate vehicle pricing and competitive inventory management. CarGurus is effective for advertising, but you might also consider Autotrader, Cars.com, or Facebook Marketplace to maximize leads. Choose a DMS based on your expected volume and whether lender integration will significantly improve efficiency for your dealership.

 

[Tallcool1]

Welcome!

I am a smaller Independent dealer as well. I have been in business for about 15 years and have a really strong grasp on all of the DMS Providers. I have used several.

#1 Frazer Computing. It is simple, intuitive, has Accounting built in at no added cost, integrates with lenders, integrates with 3rd Party marketplaces, has JD Power integrated, etc. The biggest negative to Frazer is that their system is not visually appealing. I host Frazer in my dealership on my own "server" which isn't really a server at all but a stand alone PC that we don't use for anything else. It is secure because it sits in my store. They do have a hosted version of their product as well. They do not offer websites but they do integrate with everyone. You can use Frazer for your DMS, Carsforsale for your Website, and pay about $215/mo. Add Feather Light CRM and you are under $400 all in.

#2 Dealer Center. Visually appealing but very cluttered in terms of the Interface. They just have too much stuff going on for my taste. Dealer Center does not offer Accounting but they do have a Quickbooks Interface if you want to do something like that. I personally did not like the Quiclbooks Interface. The number never matched and there were always posting errors. I spent too much time tracking down mistakes. Dealer Center does NOT interface to OFAC. If you were to do business with someone on that OFAC Watch List and got caught it would be really bad.

Doing business with someone on the OFAC watchlist can lead to
severe civil penalties, such as fines of up to $250,000 or twice the value of the transaction, and serious criminal penalties for willful violations, including up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million. Other consequences include reputational damage, blocked assets, and increased regulatory scrutiny.

They also offer websites but they are not the greatest on the SEO Side...unless you pay more for that.

If Westlake is going to be your only lender, Dealer Center has an advantage because they are the same company and actually share a building in LA.

#3 Auto Manager. Auto Manager has a nice product but it gets expensive in a hurry. When I used this company, they were integrating Accounting with Quick Books. I am not certain if they still do that or not. Nice people, all of the normal integrations, but they are not all free like Frazer. They also offer websites but they aren't the best.

There are others like Wayne Reeves Dealer Cloud, etc but I don't know much about them.