How Dealers Acquire Inventory from Service Customers

In a recent post, I highlighted how vehicles dealers acquire directly from service customers hold almost as much investment value potential as those they acquire off-lease and from trade-in. The...

How to use Kelley Blue Book “Excellent” Trade-in Values to More Easily Acquire Customer Inventory (and Not at Excellent Prices)

5 Best Practices for Customer Vehicle Acquisition Success

There’s been a remarkable shift by dealers in the past 18 months to acquire more vehicles directly from customers rather than rely on auction and trade-in purchases. Among the dealers I’ve been...

5 Pointers To Preserve and Protect Profitability As You Acquire Used Vehicles

Most dealers would agree that you make your money in used vehicles when you acquire a car. If you pay too much for an auction or trade-in vehicle, you’ve shrunk the spread between your costs to...

ProfitTime in Practice: The Right Time To Engineer Investment Value

One of the key benefits Provision ProfitTime offers dealers is the ability to appraise an auction or trade-in vehicle, enter a potential purchase price and see, instantly, what kind of investment...

A Deeper Dive Into Dealer Trade Efficiency

As franchised dealers work harder to maximize new vehicle sales in the current market, some are taking a deeper look at dealer trades. The dealers are recognizing that, in today’s environment of...

What is a good look-to-book percentage in today’s market, and is there more that you need to know?

Andrew Wright of Lehigh Valley Acura Honda has a good handle on his trade appraisal process… Do you (vAuto) have average look to book ratios for dealerships with at leas 150-200 appraisals per...

Used vehicle wholesale forecasts from two prominent used car directors

All of the trade magazines have been reporting the continued escalation of wholesale used vehicle prices. In spite of these reports, I can’t help but question whether these trends will continue. I...

Two old-timers teach the industry a new trick

Every day I become more convinced that the ability to source used vehicles is and will continue to be the core competency of a successful used car operation. Simply waiting for trades or going to...

3 Ways To Make Trade-Ins Work Better for Your Dealership

As new vehicle sales gather steam, dealers have an opportunity to ease some of their used vehicle sourcing pain and help the new vehicle sales department hit volume targets to earn factory bonus...

4 Ways to Keep More Trades And Maximize Profitability

Viagra Many dealers correctly recognize the need to keep more trade-ins to feed their used vehicle inventories. This trend raises an age-old tension at many dealerships: The new vehicle department...

vAuto & Trade-In Marketplace Provide More Vehicle Acquisition Power

Today marks the official launch of the integration of AutoTrader.com’s Trade-In Marketplace and vAuto’s Provision® inventory management system. This is exciting news for dealers on two key fronts....