The coronavirus pandemic sabotaged another merger in the financial-services space. Late Wednesday, Ally Financial and Cardholder Management Services (CardWorks) announced that they have mutually agreed to terminate their merger agreement, which had been first disclosed on Feb. 18. According to a news release, the board of directors for each company approved the termination after carefully […] [Read More]

Used-vehicle sales jumped 105.5% month-over-month in May and the year-over-year deficit narrowed from 38.4% in April to 12.5% last month, according to a report from iSeeCars.com. And while the majority of states and major cities were still down year-over-year in May, half of the nation’s 20 largest markets more than doubled their used-car sales from April, […] [Read More]

George Augustaitis, who is director of automotive industry and economic analysis at CarGurus, joins the Auto Remarketing Podcast to talk about how the automotive and economic impact from COVID-19 is different than other crises. He also talks about the used-car market ups and downs around supply and demand, auction trends and pricing. Plus, Augustaitis discusses how […] [Read More]

Dealership service drives already might be seeing fewer appointments for maintenance work such as oil changes and brake jobs because their customers aren’t using their vehicles as much because of the coronavirus pandemic. New survey data on American driving and vehicle fueling habits shows that trends with that part of dealership operations might not be […] [Read More]

Used-vehicle retail sales have struggled in the first half of the year, amid challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. But bright spots have emerged, including what looks to be strengthening franchised dealer used-car sales in the first half of June, as of press time for this publication. Just consider these data points from KAR Global’s interactive […] [Read More]

If consumers aren’t securing a lease from a franchised dealership as much because of the coronavirus pandemic, they might be using alternatives to land a vehicle lease, based on the newest information from Experian and Swapalease.com. Experian’s latest State of the Automotive Finance Market Report showed a decrease in leasing year-over-year, with 24% of new […] [Read More]

KAR Global has launched an online suite of interactive dashboards providing data and insights into the retail and wholesale used-car markets. Powered by KAR’s data science and analytics platform DRIVIN, the site includes interactive maps and graphs that allow users to access aggregated trends or more specific statistics into the retail and wholesale markets. KAR […] [Read More]

The coronavirus pandemic continues to intensify one of the basic principles of economics. Dealer demand for inventory is growing, but supply at the auction still isn’t back to the level seen before facemasks, stay-at-home orders and other COVID-19 connected elements became commonplace. The new COVID-19 Market Update from Black Book released on Tuesday described the […] [Read More]

On the surface, launching an initial public offering during a pandemic, with entire markets and industries only just beginning to restart, may seem like a head-scratcher. But for an ecommerce company in an asset-heavy, traditionally brick-and-mortar-based industry like automotive retail, it might make total sense. It did for Vroom this week. On Monday, the online […] [Read More]

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the need for dealers to act quickly in adopting the tools and practices of the future. If dealers want to succeed in a post-COVID-19 future, they must move decisively to build out their digital-first competency and infrastructure. According to a new report titled, “A Post COVID-19 Era […] [Read More]