Building a successful certified pre-owned program takes work — and an in-depth understanding of your customer base. If you have a good grasp of your customers’ needs, you can easily identify which ones will be a good fit for a CPO vehicle. And by targeting those customers effectively, you can tap into today’s profitable CPO […] [Read More]

Wheel’s Automotive Dealer Supplies will award $500 gift cards to three lucky dealers during Used Car Week next month. The gift cards are redeemable toward Wheel’s extensive line of custom, print-on-demand signs, banners, window stickers, hang tags, flags, and multi-dimensional merchandising solutions. Visitors may enter the drawing by visiting booth No. 210 at Used Car Week, […] [Read More]

The word “process” may remind football fans of the likes of Nick Saban. As has been documented many times in the press, it’s laser-like focus on the minutiae, the exact task at hand. A piecemeal approach, if you will.   Five national championships for the Alabama coach are proof that strategy can work. For Garth […] [Read More]

TrueCar has partnered with Hearst Autos to launch a new vehicle buying service through the latter's Car and Driver website. Visitors to CarandDriver.com looking for research, reviews, road tests and more will now have access to TrueCar’s new vehicle pricing information and nationwide network of more than 12,000 certified dealers. Car and Driver consumers can access the […] [Read More]

Dealers, take note: When it comes to the customer reviews you choose to feature online, words may matter more than stars. CDK Global, as part of its The Language of Closers study, has identified the top words and phrases playing a role converting potential shoppers through dealership reviews. “Dealers typically assume that positive, five-star reviews […] [Read More]

Cox Automotive chief economist Tom Webb fully expects this year’s certified pre-owned vehicle sales total to surpass what the industry generated in 2015, which was 2.55 million units. During his quarterly conference call with the media and other industry observers this week, Webb projected that this year’s CPO sales figure might land near 2.7 million, […] [Read More]

 “If I were school principal for a day …” It’s a popular childhood meme. But what if kids ran a dealership for a day? That was the crux of Chrysler’s recent effort to drum up publicity for the 2017 Pacifica. In essence it was business as usual at Southern California’s Victorville Motors on Sept. 14, […] [Read More]

Lithia Motors completed its third dealership acquisition in less than a month by securing Audi Auto Gallery in Woodland Hills, Calif. The dealer group indicated on Thursday that the store will be relocated to Calabasas, Calif. and named Audi Calabasas, adding an additional $120 million in estimated annual revenues. In the middle of September, Lithia expanded its […] [Read More]

eBay Motors and its Business and Industrial division have announced a move aimed at increasing buyer confidence. As such, the company is doubling its coverage protection up to $100,000 on its Vehicle Purchase Protection (VPP) and Business Equipment Purchase Protection (BEEP) programs, applicable to purchases after Sept. 1. “At eBay, nothing is more important than trust. Without […] [Read More]

When the calendar rolled past the close of the third quarter this past Friday, certified pre-owned sales reached the second-highest quarterly figure ever. Autodata Corp. reported on Tuesday that Q3 CPO sales came in at 675,725 units, representing a 3.4-percent lift year-over-year. Looking at the quarterly data from a sequential viewpoint, Q3 marked just a […] [Read More]