The next vehicle your dealership needs to add to its inventory may already be sitting in your service lane or parked in front of your showroom. While wholesale prices rise and margins on acquired inventory shrink, dealers are finding success by focusing on a source that’s close at hand: their own customers.
In a recent podcast interview, Lance Helgeson, Director of Industry Analysis for vAuto and Cox Automotive talked with Ken Fisher, West Coast Director of Inventory Optimization for Holman Automotive Group about how his dealer group treats trade capture as more than just a sales metric. They’re turning it into a strategic inventory acquisition strategy, supported by better appraisal practices, stronger follow-up processes, and a commitment to recovering opportunities that might otherwise slip away.
Capturing Trade-ins at Point of Sale
cross the industry, the cost of acquiring vehicles at auction is rising steadily due to higher vehicle prices and associated fees.
Instead of spending significant time and money searching for the next used vehicle to stock, Holman Automotive Group decided to concentrate on the thousands of potential inventory opportunities that already pass through their showrooms and service drives every year.
To achieve their goal of taking in a trade for 50 percent of the vehicles they sell, they carefully monitor their Kelley Blue Book Instant Cash Offer conversion rates as well as their service drive appraisals, offers and conversions with a goal of getting more vehicles from consumers than from auction.
Instead of viewing trade-ins as part of a sales transaction, they’re treating them as a core inventory acquisition strategy. That means inventory acquisition becomes a broader workflow that stretches across different dealership departments.
Going Beyond the Appraisal
Performing appraisals is important, but it’s not where the story ends. With the goal of converting more appraisal opportunities into acquired inventory, it’s necessary to add checks and balances to make sure the dollar amount makes sense.
This means building a process that includes watching for vehicles that haven’t come into inventory after an appraisal and taking another look at:
- The actual cash value (ACV)
- The level of reconditioning that will be necessary
- The profitability the dealership would like to get
- What dealership would be willing to sell it for
With more people helping to determine what the trade-in value should be, it may be appropriate to strategically adjust the offer to get another shot at capturing the vehicle.
This “save a deal” process gives the dealership a chance to decide if they’re willing to reduce some front-end profit to capture the trade-in, sell another vehicle, gain F&I revenue, and ideally get service revenue down the road. If yes, then the store contacts the customer with a revised offer.
The Best Dealers Building a “Save the Deal” Culture
Because poor documentation makes it difficult for anyone else to reengage the opportunity later, the dealerships that consistently acquire more trades rely on repeatable processes.
Holman’s approach includes regular appraisal audits and scoring systems focused on process quality with review criteria that include:
- Documentation quality
- Vehicle condition notes and photos
- Photo completeness, including the odometer and VIN plate
- Valuation consistency
- Data accuracy
- Offer validation processes and follow-up
Ultimately, the goal is to get as many vehicles as possible in on trade now to avoid spending more for the same vehicles at auction later.
Don’t Overlook the Service Drive as a Trade-in Source
A dealership’s best inventory opportunities may be sitting in the service lane. Even though many dealerships focus their trade acquisition efforts primarily around active sales opportunities, any given service customer might be open to trading in their vehicle and purchasing another one.
The Cox Automotive 2026 Fixed Ops and Ownership study found that 33 percent of service customers say they want to discuss getting their trade-in value, and that customers begin to consider trade-in versus repair once repair quotes approach the $3,200 mark.
A strategic service-lane acquisition process can help dealerships flag trade-in opportunities that pass through the service drive and have conversations that can lead to increased acquisition rates and higher likelihood of repurchase from the same dealer.
Trade Generation as a Competitive Advantage
The dealerships seeing the greatest success with trade capture aren’t necessarily making dramatically different offers. They’re building more disciplined processes around appraisal quality, opportunity recovery, and accountability. Every missed appraisal is reviewed, every opportunity is documented, and every department understands its role in acquiring inventory.
As Holman Automotive Group’s experience demonstrates, improving trade generation is about creating a culture where inventory acquisition is everyone’s responsibility, from the sales floor to the service drive. Dealers that embrace that mindset can uncover more inventory opportunities, make more informed acquisition decisions, and create a more predictable pipeline of used vehicles in an increasingly competitive market.
