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Integrating OEM Online Wholesale Platforms Into Your Franchise Dealership Strategy

While trade-ins are an easy way for dealers to acquire used inventory, most dealers look for other ways to supplement their inventory and create the right mix of vehicles for their market. In fact, NADA reports that the average franchise dealer sources nearly 30% of their used vehicle inventory from purchases outside of trade-ins.

If your franchise dealers are looking for ways to save time and energy on finding the best cars for their used car business, encourage them to look to software solutions to help them simplify and streamline the process. Many of your franchises’ used car managers are wearing more and more hats every day. Appraising, pricing, merchandising, getting inventory through the reconditioning process — and then the dealer says, “Oh, by the way, we need more cars! Can you go buy some? Fast!”

Stockwave from vAuto could be the right solution for your dealers. With nearly 6,000 dealer clients, this solution can get your upstream, off-lease inventory in front of dealers faster. The Stockwave software wraps around your dealer-direct purchasing site and provides key data to help your dealers match your cars with the right market. Many OEMs have already integrated their platforms with Stockwave, but if you’re reading this and you haven’t, I believe you’re doing your dealers a disservice. We all want speed and efficiency in dealership operations so they can focus on the most important priorities. As a dealer once told me, nothing happens until we sell a car!

Help Your Franchise Dealers Make Smarter Decisions at Online Auctions

Stockwave factors in aspects of vAuto’s Live Market View to help dealers make smarter, faster decisions at online auctions. With real-time data and key metrics, your dealers receive stocking level recommendations based on their dealership’s sales velocity, retail market sales information, Market Days Supply, and target days supply based on their local market. With one click they can cruise through your upstream off-lease inventory to get the right car for their market and feed their CPO inventory needs. They get an instant appraisal with more accurate cost projections, including estimated reconditioning expenses tied to the condition report, not a flat average that may make a vehicle look unrealistic to acquire.

Efficiencies That Come With Franchise OEM Integration

Current Stockwave clients are already saving hours of manual research with access to all the major auction platforms like ADESA, Manheim, EDGE Pipeline and several independent auctions. If they’re your franchise dealers, they probably want to apply the same time-saving workflow to your off-lease upstream inventory. Your dealers could have greater buying power. Stockwave gives the OEM dealer body the ability to use local market data to purchase your off-lease inventory that best fits their market. The result is getting off-lease inventory into the right dealerships for quick retail, maximizing their inventory turns. By getting the right vehicles to the right place at the right time, Stockwave allows your franchise-direct listings to create a strong bond between franchisees and the OEM brand around sourcing pre-owned vehicles that will drive CPO program sales and customer retention.

A Quick and Seamless Process Is Possible

With a quick and seamless process, your brand’s auction stream can be up and running in as few as two weeks. Contact us to learn more about how you can ensure clean, stable and direct integration with your OEM platform interface.

About the Author

With over 30 years of automotive industry expertise, Patrick Janes is the AVP of Inventory Solutions at vAuto. As a former dealership general manager, he emphasizes the significance of a vehicle management system tailored for optimal ROI and dealer strategy support. Patrick's extensive career includes working with dealers nationwide for an OEM and serving as a vAuto performance manager, gaining insights into customer needs. A guest lecturer at Northwood University, Patrick holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Bradley University.

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