September's SERVICEiQ numbers are in, and I'd like to hit on some highlights first:
We are getting close to a 2:1 ratio of straight acquisitions to trades. The trend of "street buys" continues to grow, and I can only offer theories. My leading theory is now that SERVICEiQ has opened this door for dealers, they're getting better at the straight "buy from a customer" process. A weaker theory is customers realize the market is softening and are trying to take advantage while they can.
The days to sell a car sourced from SERVICEiQ is still 14 days! I have been stoked to see how quickly cars turn from this source all along, and I'm super stoked to see it settling into a two-week turn rate. This is the second month in a row we have seen this speedy turn. It makes total sense. People who service cars at the dealership take better care of their cars, and dealers who pull those customers out are better at controlling their expenses on these units vs. something from an auction. All of that makes these units more appealing for the sales staff to turn quicker.
As expected, we see signs of a cooling market - this typically happens as Summer shifts into Autumn. Kids return to school, and all the rigors of normal life come back. With that said, the small declines are tiny. There were fewer VINs traded, but the overall average gross on deals sourced out of SERVICEiQ was $17,668 vs. August's $17,846. Dealers are still getting the money! So a 14X ROI remained.
There were fewer ROs closed in September vs. August. As repair orders are the trigger to start it all, it makes sense to see the number of offers sent and viewed decline. The amount of equity-eligible customers came down a little too. This cascaded to a small drop in lead volume too. Again, these were small declines.
However, the consistency in email open rates, click-thrus, texting opt-ins, delivery rates, and lead conversion percentages has remained steady since we launched the beta over a year ago. These are the mechanics we continue to build from.
