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