Enterprise Holdings announced its newest five-year goals for its businesses on Monday, included in its fiscal year 2015 sustainability report.
Within the report, titled The Business of Sustainability, the operators of well-known companies such as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car built on their last five years of sustainability results and set new goals through its 2020 fiscal year.
"These new goals reflect a fresh look at our priorities based on conversations with our many stakeholders and leadership teams," said Pam Nicholson, president and chief executive officer at Enterprise Holdings.
The goals Enterprise Holdings listed include the following:
- Waste: Reduce companywide paper use 40 percent by FY 2020.
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG): Reduce Scope 1 (direct GHG from owned operations) and Scope 2 (indirect GHG from consumption of purchased electricity, heat and/or steam) greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent by FY 2020.
- Energy: Reduce annual direct and indirect energy use and related costs, compared to the previous year.
- Water: Reduce annual water use (per vehicle wash), compared to the previous year.
- Workforce Development: Continue investing in the workplace by providing an average of at least three days' professional development annually per full-time management employee, and also encouraging all employees to attend relevant company sessions, events, programs and forums.
"We still firmly believe providing long-term benefits and seamless solutions to customers, partners and communities is the key to sustainability in the transportation and travel sector," said Brad Carr, vice president of corporate business development for Enterprise Holdings. "However, we're also seeing more and more contract-related questions about top-line sustainability issues. That means we work to help organizations better understand the long-term impact of corporate travel in terms of cost, plus environmental considerations, efficiency and duty of care."
Looking back at the 2010-2015 fiscal years, Enterprise Holdings listed the following achievements in the area of sustainability:
- Energy: Reduced natural gas consumption 14.8 percent and cut electricity use 19.1 percent, compared with FY 2010 baseline. Figures have been calculated using same-store and weather-normalized data (excluding new locations and branch offices where an external landlord is responsible for utility bills).
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG): Achieved a 10.1 reduction in Scope 1 emissions and a 31.2 percent reduction in Scope 2 emissions since FY 2010. Combined, Enterprise Holdings reduced its GHG emissions intensity 18.6 percent.
- Alternative-Fuel Shuttle Buses: Converted 98 percent of airport shuttle buses to biodiesel, synthetic diesel, compressed natural gas or hybrid models since FY 2010.
- Enterprise Sustainable Construction Protocol (ESCP) Guidelines: Invested more than $150 million, including thousands of new and retrofitted construction projects, since FY 2010.
- Product Lifecycle: Recycled 1.4 million gallons of oil and more than 1 million oil filters for its fleet last year, representing 95 percent of the oil and virtually all of the filters used in its North American service centers.
To learn more about Enterprise Holdings’ sustainability values, click here.
Kelley Blue Book TV fans that also happen to own a variant of a Roku streaming device can now enjoy both, as KBB announced at the end of December that its streaming channel is now available on Roku.
KBB’s free streaming service provides video content from the editors at KBB.com and allows consumers to gain insight and research vehicles with streamed video content that focuses on various new vehicles, special features, expert reviews, auto show coverage, and more.
"By offering more than 200 vehicle reviews and auto-related features, Kelley Blue Book TV not only helps car shoppers in making the best possible purchase decisions, but also uses visual storytelling to present videos that will entertain as much as they inform," said Jack Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for KBB.com. "Our multi-award-winning videos offer trusted, objective vehicle information in a visually compelling format, detailing experiences unlike any test drive you've been on, including off-beat, off-road adventures and even a breathtaking helicopter skydive."
KBB recently won the 2015 Dean Batchelor Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism, judged by the Motor Press Guild, for its “Polaris Slingshot Review” video.
Roku users interested in checking out KBB TV can find it in the Roku Channel Store in the “lifestyle” category, or add the channel online here. KBB TV is completely free and requires no subscription.
When it comes to a vehicle’s retained value from new to used, volume is important — but selling more of a vehicle doesn’t necessarily imply its value will stay. Even if the product is spectacular, perceived quality and new quantity sold do not go hand in hand.
This is one lesson that Subaru and Lexus have apparently learned, as both were today named by Kelley Blue Book for the latter’s 2016 Best Resale Value Award winners for best brand and best luxury brand, respectively.
Auto Remarketing chatted with Eric Ibara, KBB’s director of residual values, to see why.
“I guess the simple answer would be that they make great vehicles that people want. There are a lot of brands that make great cars,” Ibara said. “I think what we’ve learned is that making great cars is not sufficient. You also need to manage the way in which vehicles are marketed and sold. And what these brands do very well, I think, is they match their production with the market demands.
“They don’t overproduce the vehicles, and they’re also marketing the vehicles in a way that enhances the value of the vehicles. So they’re not discounting their vehicles to get more volume.”
KBB's 2016 Best Resale Value: Top 10 Cars
| Chevrolet Camaro |
Subaru Forester |
| Chevrolet Colorado |
Subaru WRX |
| GMC Canyon |
Toyota 4Runner |
| GMC Sierra |
Toyota Tacoma |
| Jeep Wrangler |
Toyota Tundra |
And if you take a look at the top-10 list of vehicles from the 2016 model year that KBB expects to retain the highest percentage of their sticker values, you probably won’t be surprised that eight out of the 10 are trucks or utility vehicles. What may surprise you, however, is that five of the vehicles expected to depreciate the least are from domestic automakers.
With four of those five being manufactured by General Motors, we asked Ibara if he was surprised.
“I think that people could be surprised by that. You don’t normally think of domestic brands when you think of vehicles that retain their value,” he said. “But I think that ever since GM went through bankruptcy they really have changed the way in which they approach the market. I sense, and I see, that they’re doing a better job of matching production to demand. They’re not overproducing vehicles and they’ve cut back on the volume of vehicles that they send into daily rental.
“I think these are all good signs but I guess, first and foremost, they’re making vehicles that are very appealing when you see the vehicles that have come to market over the last few years, like the Tahoe and like the Canyon and Colorado,” he continued. “You can see that the vehicles are much improved over what they’ve offered in the past.”
Those with a keen eye that follow KBB’s resale values will notice a first-time inclusion on the list: Tesla.
Ibara says that used-car transaction data for Tesla, up until recent times, was a bit hard to come by. But now that the situation has been rectified, as Ibara put it, KBB is noticing that Tesla’s Model S isn’t seeing as hard a hit in the used market as the rest of the electric vehicle segment is currently experiencing.
“The electric vehicle segment is very interesting,” Ibara said. “We are seeing EVs depreciate much faster than their gasoline-engine counterparts, where one exists. We think it’s a function of the federal tax credit that all these vehicles qualify for and we also think that the early adopters who are buying the electric vehicles want a new car. We don’t see a lot of early adopters gravitating toward used electric vehicles and as a result their depreciation is very steep, for the most part. The Model S is an exception to this rule.”
So what’s a “safe” segment to invest in, as a used-vehicle dealer? KBB expects for trucks and sport utility vehicles to remain popular for years to come — a trend that Ibara says started before oil prices dropped the favorable level they are today.
“We think it’s a trend that will be around for a while,” he said. “Oil is trading around $35 a barrel right now, and there’s really no sign that it’s going to end that streak any time soon. We’re thinking that consumers will continue to prefer sport utility vehicles and that will make them more desirable five years down the road.”
Here's the full list of KBB's 2016 Best Resale Value Awards by vehicle category:
KBB's 2016 Best Resale Value: By Vehicle Category
| SUBCOMPACT CAR: Honda Fit |
PLUG-IN VEHICLE: Tesla Model S |
| COMPACT CAR: Subaru Impreza |
COMPACT SUV/CROSSOVER: Jeep Wrangler |
| SPORTY COMPACT CAR: Subaru WRX |
MID-SIZE SUV/CROSSOVER: Toyota 4Runner |
| MID-SIZE CAR: Subaru Legacy |
FULL-SIZE SUV/CROSSOVER: Chevrolet Tahoe |
| FULL-SIZE CAR: Toyota Avalon |
LUXURY COMPACT SUV/CROSSOVER: Porsche Macan |
| ENTRY-LEVEL LUXURY CAR: Lexus RC |
LUXURY MID-SIZE SUV/CROSSOVER: Lexus GX 460 |
| LUXURY CAR: Lexus GS |
LUXURY FULL-SIZE SUV/CROSSOVER: Lexus LX 570 |
| HIGH-END LUXURY CAR: Porsche Panamera |
HYBRID SUV/CROSSOVER: Lexus RX 450h |
| SPORTS CAR: Chevrolet Camaro LT |
MID-SIZE PICKUP TRUCK: Toyota Tacoma |
| HIGH PERFORMANCE CAR: Chevrolet Camaro SS |
FULL-SIZE PICKUP TRUCK: Toyota Tundra |
| HYBRID/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY CAR: Lexus ES 300h |
MINIVAN/VAN: Toyota Sienna |
VehicleXchange LLC announced Monday that it has added automated GM Financial pre-qualification capabilities to its service lane lead solution.
The tool, launched by Pearl Technology Holdings in January and otherwise known as “VX,” now allows dealers to pre-qualify customers through GM Financial within seconds.
The VX system utilizes pre-screening technology from Experian to allow dealers to calculate a customer’s equity in their vehicle as well as allowing consumers to view all vehicles in a dealer’s inventory that they are pre-qualified to purchase.
Another aim of VX is to help customers find “improved” terms via manufacturer incentives and estimated payments, allowing customers to upgrade their vehicle and maintain the same or lower monthly payments.
Allowing for automatic communication to consumers on the dealer’s behalf, the VX system can turn manufacturer incentives into targeted marketing campaigns within 24 hours of release.
The solution has achieved 1,300 subscriptions from dealers since it launched at the beginning of the year. To learn more about VX, click here.
Fans of piloting the Mercedes-Benz GLA in Nintendo’s “Mario Kart 8” can now continue dodging shells in another of Nintendo’s titles, “Super Mario Maker.”
This free addition to “Super Mario Maker,” in the form of a special costume (Mario driving a GLA) and a custom-designed special event course in the game, is the latest in the list of marketing initiatives Mercedes has made with Nintendo as its only official automotive partner.
“We are delighted to once again be represented in a blockbuster game like ‘Super Mario Maker,’” said Jens Thiemer, vice president of marketing at Mercedes-Benz. “Mercedes-Benz and Super Mario have a lot in common. Above all, they share the same vision: to inspire their customers and fans.”
The Mercedes-Benz ”Super Mario Maker” event course was created by Mario fans at the company who enjoyed the GLA’s inclusion in “Mario Kart 8” and wanted to build a level showing Mario taking a road trip.
The event course takes Mario through several automotive-related areas, including the dealership, taking a test drive through a city and eventually hitting a famous German highway — the Autobahn.
“’Super Mario Maker’ continues to grow and evolve with new courses and content,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s great that a luxury car brand like Mercedes-Benz recognizes the ability to create fun courses and share them with others.”
Cox Automotive’s Dealer.com announced Wednesday it has joined with Yahoo and Bing for their respective partner programs.
Dealer.com today joins the new Bing Ads Elite SMB Partner Program, which the company says is for Bing business partners who have proven and trusted expertise in driving growth to both small- and medium-sized businesses via the Bing Ads platform.
"Being part of the Bing Ads Elite SMB Partner Program will allow us to help our customers maximize their return-on-investment and optimize their digital marketing campaigns using the Bing platform," said Chris Smith, vice president of advertising sales at Dealer.com. "At Dealer.com, we have extensive experience in delivering top-performing digital campaigns for automotive dealers, and this partnership will help us bring additional car buyers into the media strategy at a local level and improve sales for our clients."
The site also announced today that it has joined the Yahoo Preferred Partner Program, a community of advertising technology and service companies. Dealer.com has been selected for integration into Yahoo Gemini, Yahoo’s proprietary marketplace for search and native advertising across devices.
"Yahoo has been a long standing media partner for Dealer.com and we are very excited to expand that relationship with the Yahoo Preferred Partner Program,” Smith said. “Our mutual goals with Yahoo focus on serving the automotive dealer market with top-performing digital campaigns that include search, display and now native — across all screens."
Visit the Dealer.com site to learn more.
As announced last week, automotive companies will soon have three more domain extensions to choose from when crafting their Web presence: .cars, .car and .auto.
The domains are being launched by Cars Registry — a joint venture between domain companies XYZ and Unregistry.
To get some insight into what this means for dealers, Auto Remarketing reached out to Daniel Negari, chief executive officer of Cars Registry.
“Cars Registry Ltd. was formed by two domain industry leaders, XYZ and Uniregistry, with the vision of providing authoritative and memorable domain options for the auto industry,” he said.
So, why the new domains? Here is a look into what led to that decision.
Reasoning for the move
In discussing the reasoning for the new domain extensions, Negari explained that since the 1990s there have only been a handful of relevant domain options available — think .com, .org, etc. — and many of the best domain names were taking early on.
Negari said this left “many dealers,OEMs and vendors with their third- or fourth-choice URLs.”
“Especially given the growth of mobile traffic, there has been an increasing demand for short and memorable domain names, and a continual lack of supply,” he said.
“We brought .xyz to the market for every website everywhere, and now the auto industry will have the chance to get the domain name they have always wanted,” he continued.
He offered this example: Nissan.com is actually owned by a computer company. And now, Nissan Automotive has the opportunity to lock down Nissan.auto to replace some of the longer domains they use today.
What does it mean for dealers?
The new extensions can potentially give dealerships a marketing advantage over what are often expensive or lengthy .com URLs.
Negari said, in particular, for those dealers with longer domain names the company is recommending they upgrade their existing lengthy domain to a memorable two letter, three letter or one-word domain.
“We offer complimentary white glove service to aid dealerships in migrating their current website to their new .cars, .car, or .auto domain,” said Negari. “This process only takes a couple days and their SEO, ranking, and emails are maintained in the process.”
If dealers choose this approach, the company’s team will handle the entire migration process, and Negari said they have done so dozens of times in the past “without a hitch."
Dealers also can use "do it yourself" migration guide for anyone who would like to upgrade their domain, which can be found here.
Negari explained the new domains have the potential to help dealers capture more organic search engine traffic, as well.
“Almost every domain variation will be available to register, including city, state, and region domain names,” Negari explained. “For example, a dealer could display their pre-owned inventory on LosAngeles.cars, and then start to capture search engine traffic for competitive keywords like ‘los angeles cars’ and ‘los angeles used cars’. The dealer could then run search engine marketing, TV, print, and radio campaigns and track the results on their new Web address.”
This is the approach early adopter St. Louis Motorcars took. The Midwest dealership rebranded from STLMotorcars.com to STL.cars.
The dealer principle, Graham Hill, than used the money the business might have spent on a comparable .com domain on a new ad campaign to promote the store.
“Buying the .com version of STL would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and STL.cars works exactly the same way, but looks better in advertising,” Hill said. “I got a better looking name for less money and used the savings over securing the .cars equivalent, to market my new website on duPont REGISTRY.”
And coveted .com domains go for increasingly large amounts of money. Negari shared that over the past 12 months, he has seen two-letter .com domains sell for over $1.5 million, while some three-letter domains have come for over $50,000.
On the other hand, all .cars, .car, and .auto domain names will be priced at the same flat rate of $3,000 MSRP per year, beginning on Jan. 20.
Domains expected to go quickly
To start off, between Dec. 9 and Jan. 12, the domains will be first made available to trademark holders registered in the company’s Trademark Clearinghouse.
Following this trademark period, a public priority registration period will start on Jan. 12 to give anyone an opportunity to register any available domains for a premium fee before they enter general availability.
And then on Jan. 20, the domains will become open to the public through Cars Registry’s retailers, including Network Solutions and GoDaddy.
And Negari expects these domains to go quickly.
“We have already received contact from many large car manufacturers and dealer groups who will be registering their trademark domain names in the initial trademark holder exclusive period,” said Negari. “There has also been a lot of interest in securing keyword-rich domains during the public priority registration period when domains like Buy.cars, Compare.cars, LA.cars and Luxury.auto are expected to be registered.”
From the initial feedback the company has received from smaller auto dealers and venders, the majority of respondents wanted to register at least one address with the new domain extensions.
But in many cases, they are requesting 10 to 30 domains for each dealership “in order to lock up the geographic variant ending with .cars, model names ending in .car, and their automotive group name ending in .auto for SEO/SEM purposes,” said Negari.
In other words, domains will be going and going fast.
Shorter URLs preferable to mobile users
Who wants to type in some long, cumbersome URL on their smartphone? Well … no one, really, which is why shorter URLs are becoming more and more important as mobile Web usage grows, especially in terms of vehicle shopping.
Negari said that have been a number of studies done on the effectiveness of shorter URLs and the direct correlation between the number of characters in a URL and the popularity of the website, and, not surprisingly, shorter URLs tend to be more popular.
“As digital ad spend in the auto industry continues to grow, along with the amount of mobile users, the demand for short, catchy domains is also increasing,” said Negari. “.cars, .car, and .auto domain names allow for innovation and empower businesses to drive their brand and secure some of the Internet's most valuable real estate.”
There will be many more to come, but for inspiration, here are a few examples of the auto businesses who have already made the switch to one of the three new domains:
Spireon Inc., best known for its vehicle-tracking solutions, has debuted its new service provided exclusively through used-vehicle dealers, called Kahu, which allows customers a way to link their vehicle to their smartphone and track its whereabouts.
According to the company, the Kahu service includes an installed device on the car that connects the car’s location and trip data to a user’s smartphone application, providing real-time access to information such as vehicle location, theft recovery services, driving alerts and more.
“With over 2.5 million connected vehicles on the road today, Spireon offers the broadest open Connected Vehicle service available today,” said Shawn Hansen, Spireon’s chief marketing officer. “Kahu is the first aftermarket connected vehicle service available exclusively from car dealers. The thousands of car dealers that use GoldStar GPS for collateral and lot management can easily add Kahu to increase profits, as well as help any car buyer connect their car to the Internet.”
While providing several value-added services for the customer, the device is also potential a profit-point for dealers, who can use the device to track and manage their vehicle inventory prior to sale and sell Kahu as an add-on service for any vehicle.
To find out more about Kahu, click here.
Third-party auto shopping and research site CarGurus announced Tuesday the launch of its U.K. website, CarGurus UK.
This is CarGurus’ first site in the European market, and the company says it hopes to offer something new for car shoppers in the region.
Langley Steinert, the co-founder of TripAdvisor who founded CarGurus in 2007, looks forward to adding the U.K. to his company’s monthly exposure to 15.5 million in the U.S. as well as in Canada, which the company added in 2014.
“CarGurus has grown quickly and consistently based on a unique model that delivers for automotive shoppers and dealers alike,” Steinert said. “We have seen in the United States that when the car shopping process is transparent, everybody benefits. We believe that the U.K. automotive marketplace is seeking just this kind of transparency, and shoppers will appreciate the evolution that CarGurus brings to the region.”
The CarGurus UK site, at the time of launch, offered its U.K. shoppers exposure to over 200,000 car listings, along with free access to both its site and its mobile app. Dealers interested in listing on the site can do so at no cost with the option of buying additional advertising packages. The U.K. site currently includes stock from over 3,500 dealerships.
Apparently, the days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals being reserved for discounted items that would fit on your office desk or living room mantle are long gone.
While some manufacturers got in the game early this year, another auto sales company is throwing its hat into the ring — in this case, it's Carvana.
And they’d like to make it as easy to buy a used car as it is to, say, replace your television.
Starting at 12:01 a.m. MST (2:01 a.m. EST) on Friday, Carvana is offering an additional $1,000 off of any car in its inventory for online shoppers in certain states.
This “Cyber Monday Deal” will stay valid through the weekend, ending at 6 p.m. MST (8 p.m. EST) on Monday, Nov. 30.
Carvana offers delivery to all of the contiguous United States. The company notes that, due to laws in certain states limiting vehicle price reductions, the deal will not be available in Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, New York, Texas and Utah.
