The Nissan brand has boosted its certified pre-owned sales this year by nearly 9 percent, according to Autodata Corp., moving 122,651 CPO units through eight months.

And the past two (July and August) each broke all-time records.

The luxury arm, Infiniti, has seen certified sales climb almost 17 percent, with year-to-date sales reaching 20,491 through August.

And dealers are buying in.

Dealer engagement with the Nissan certified brand is at a record high, said Marty Gleason, who heads up Nissan CPO.

 “Strongest it’s ever been,” Gleason said, “but there’s still room to grow.”

In addition to the cyclical nature of the business (especially with off-lease volume) and the fact that CPO can protect residual values well, strong engagement in CPO from dealers plus strong support from the brand and captive are driving these records from Nissan, Gleason said.

During an interview with Auto Remarketing at Nissan North America’s headquarters, he estimated that about 15 percent of the Nissan dealers aren’t engaged with CPO, with some of those being smaller dealers and/or those that have their own certification programs/warranty companies.  

“But to me, the most sophisticated organizations are deep into it,” he said, citing Berkshire Hathaway Automotive and Penske Automotive Group as examples. “These are guys that completely understand the CPO business.”

And even with Berkshire owning a warranty/service contract company, one of its dealerships — Trophy Nissan — is the brand’s top CPO dealer, Gleason said. Penske, meanwhile, targets a CPO-to-new ratio of 35 percent, he added.

 “Our publics are big, big contributors,” Gleason said.

What drives that engagement from the public groups, Gleason said, is the loyalty and retention that CPO can generate.

New-car loyalty for Nissan is over 50 percent, Gleason said, and CPO is within 5 percent of that. Public retailers also see “how vested the captives are” in CPO, he added.

The credit approval process on the new-car side at Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp. is easier if the shopper is already a CPO customer, since they’re in the system and their payments can be tracked.

Gleason said a shopper who is a Nissan CPO owner making payments on time automatically receives preapproval for a new-car loan from NMAC when they’re buying new.

That’s one dealer engagement strategy that Gleason along with Infiniti CPO head Sam Liang discussed when they met with Auto Remarketing earlier this week.

Dealer incentives, in general, are helping.

For instance, on the Nissan side, Gleason points out that given the fact that the dealer has to do a 167-point inspection, Nissan CPO gives them credit for a service visit.

Dealers get incentives for high service retention, because if that shopper returns, they’re a loyal customer, he said.

 Another draw to CPO for dealers, Liang said, is that they realize CPO is another option they can give the shopper, if the new-car side doesn’t work.

And it’s also an option the shopper can’t get anywhere else, he added. It’s best to keep the shopper at the store and sell them what you have available, Liang said.

Crossing from outside markets, sometimes into new

Another plus for dealers, Gleason said, is that CPO shoppers are “much more inclined” to cross metropolitan areas to buy.

 “When a customer is looking for a specific used car, with low miles, the right condition, the right Carfax report, they will travel to get that car,” Gleason said.

And it’s not just that they travel. Gleason said that more than a third of Nissan CPO shoppers the automaker tracks get converted to new-car Nissan buyers.

That might explain their motto of “used drives new.”

Gleason notes, “CPO leads convert to new.”  

Transition to luxury

And for many of the Infiniti CPO buyers, it may be their first time buying luxury.

Liang said the average CPO buyer for the brand is between ages 45 and 47, and the average size of their household is 3.8 people.

For most luxury brands, including Infiniti, the average age of a new-car buyer is around 55 to 57, with 1.8 folks in the household, Liang said.

“So you can tell many of them are empty-nesters … where many of the people that are CPO customers, they’re a little larger family because they have kids in the household; they’re trying to move up from a mainstream brand into the entry segment,” Liang said.  

They might not be able to afford a new luxury vehicle yet, but the CPO option gives them many of the same benefits, he said. So Infiniti is targeting some of those customers.

And given the growth Infiniti has seen in 2016 — plus the growth at Nissan — it appears to be working.