It was fitting that buy/sell expert Erin Kerrigan of Kerrigan Advisors closed Access: Innovation with a detailed, holistic rundown of current buy/sell activity. I say that because it seemed like a...
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During his general session at Access: Innovation, Cox Automotive chief economist Jonathan Smoke confirmed news that was on the minds of many dealers at the event—autoworkers would, in fact, go on...
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A quick quiz: Which movies put the following quotes into daily circulation? “Follow the money” and “Show me the money.” The respective answers are “All the President’s Men” and “Jerry McGuire.”...
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Economists sometimes use the term “Goldilocks moment” to describe an economy where everything’s just right—like the moment in the fairy tale when Goldilocks finds the perfect porridge. The...
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In my day as a dealer, we didn’t have customers calling or e-mailing the dealership to ask for a value on their vehicle to sell or trade it. Such inquiries happened, of course, but it was far more...
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It’s no secret that many dealers have been working hard to diversify how they source used vehicle inventory, relying less on trade-ins and auction purchases in favor of acquiring vehicles directly...
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About two months ago, I wrote about general sales manager James Skop’s experience half-way through an operational challenge he accepted: To align his used vehicle pricing to ProfitTime GPS...
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There are two troubling trends underway in used vehicle departments across the country that deserve dealers’ attention right now. From here, it seems as if the trends and their singular root cause...
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My recent post about dealer groups opting to go for used vehicle gross profit over volume prompted a question from several dealers—what if we do want to make the trade-off and make gross or volume...
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There’s an interesting shift in my recent conversations with dealers about their used vehicle inventories that seems relevant to share here. While many of my conversations address how dealers are...
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An Automotive News story this past weekend gave me pause. The piece highlighted an apparent strategic decision by public dealer groups and large used vehicle-only retailers to go for gross profit...
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I’ve been hearing a similar concern from ProfitTime GPS dealers in recent conversations: “I need more Platinum and Gold vehicles to get my average front-end gross profit back on track.” The...
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In late February, sales manager James Skop of Fletch’s Buick GMC Audi in Petoskey, MI, made a bold decision. The decision followed a conversation with his vAuto Performance Manager, Vinson...
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If memory serves, I first heard the term “profit coma” from dealer Brian Benstock of Paragon Honda during a podcast more than a year ago. He used the term to describe how a run of unprecedented...
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In my most recent post, I shared how dealers, and used vehicle managers in particular, get antsy about meeting their sales volume targets near the end of the month and discount the vehicles they...
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Let’s see if the following scenario sounds familiar: In the final days of a month, a used vehicle manager gets worried about meeting their monthly sales goal. The current month’s sales might be...
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If there’s one thing that might define of how this year’s spring compares to prior years, it might be that everything’s arriving sooner than expected. My friends in the Chicago area report that...
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My phone’s been buzzing off the hook in the past week as dealers are almost single-mindedly asking the same question: Where’s the used vehicle market headed? The calls and questions moved from...
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Every dealer would agree that you make your money when you buy a used vehicle. That’s why appraisals are so critically important. The appraisal establishes the return on investment (ROI) and...
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I’ve had a version of the following conversation with dealers in recent weeks. The conversation typically arrives after I’ve shared why dealers should be treating their distressed (or “Bronze”)...
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