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Don?t Let Used Vehicle Inventory Shortage Bring You?Down

By Josh Vajda

With prices of late model used vehi?cles at a near all-time high one of the great?est chal?lenges for used car man?agers is acquir?ing enough inven?tory to meet the cur?rent demand.

Used car man?agers are trav?el?ing fur?ther dis?tances, attend?ing more auc?tions and pay?ing more than they ever have before, with lit?tle con?trol of what comes avail?able at auc?tions and what the mar?ket demands they pay for good inventory.

What they do have con?trol over, how?ever, are the processes within the deal?er?ship that deter?mine how leads for used cars are handled.

Imple?ment?ing the fol?low?ing best prac?tices in the Inter?net Sales depart?ment may help alle?vi?ate some of the pain felt due to cur?rent lack of inventory:

1. Encour?age Flex?i?bil?ity. When the price of a used car reaches 60% of a new car, often times the con?sumer will opt for a new car instead. So when an Inter?net leads comes in for a used vehi?cle and you don?t have the inven?tory to match it, high?light new vehi?cles in the same style and?price
2. Actively Solicit Trade-ins. Tag every email cor?re?spon?dence to cus?tomers with an offer to buy their trade-in vehicle?whether they buy from you or not?to drive traf?fic into your show?room and help boost your inventory.
3. Don?t Give Up. Instead of clos?ing out leads that you couldn?t help, due to lack of inven?tory, start a ?want list? of vehi?cles requested and pro?vide it to the used car man?ager weekly.
4. Hold Firm on Prices. Used vehi?cles are turn?ing quickly and hard to replace right now, which reduces the amount of poten?tial sub?sti?tute vehi?cles in the mar?ket and makes the ones you have even more valuable.

Josh Vajda, Direc?tor of Inside Sales, AutoUSA, can be reached at vajdaj@autoUSA.com. Read the full arti?cle here.

Source: http://automotivedigest.com/2012/09/dont-let-used-vehicle-inventory-shortage-bring-you-down-2/

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