Off Lease Only — among the Top 100 independent dealers highlighted this past summer in Auto Remarketing — is making its inventory of more than 6,500 vehicles easier to find in seven new online markets.
Now customers who search for a specific vehicle via Cars.com will have Off Lease Only vehicles automatically pop up in their search if they reside in Houston, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Cincinnati, Charlotte, N.C., Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
In addition to a total of 15 Cars.com online markets, Off Lease Only inventory is now available through other sites in more than two dozen markets and will be in 50 markets by the end of the year.
“The best-kept secret in Florida is now nationwide,” says Mark Fischer, Off Lease Only founder, who started the south Florida-based dealership with his wife, Eileen, in 1992. “With our continued expansion, our inventory is now popping up in places where people wouldn’t usually find us.”
As it continues to reach new markets throughout the nation, Off Lease Only is also growing its inventory of mostly 2015 through 2018 units to 8,000 in stock.
“From Mazdas to Maseratis, we have largest selection of quality used cars in Florida and probably the United States,” Fischer said. “Our goal is to make sure customers anywhere in the country know they can get incredible cars at incredible prices.”
Off Lease Only can arrange to have vehicles shipped to customers anywhere in the country and also encourages customers to come to Florida — especially this time of year — to pick up a vehicle and perhaps turn the trip into a vacation.
“You can make your trip into a Disney World weekend, or South Beach for that matter,” Fischer said. “You can come to Florida and spend a few days enjoying our incredible weather this time of year with the money you saved buying a car from us.”
Off Lease Only currently has four locations in Florida including the West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami areas as well as in Orlando. It is also planning to open a Tampa location within the next year and stores in Jacksonville and Fort Myers.
Fischer says that the stores each have more than 1,500 used vehicles on site. Off Lease Only customer service can pick up customers at the airport for added convenience, and hotel and rental car partnerships are also available for added savings.
“You would have to visit several other big box used-car dealers to see the inventory we have in each of our locations,” Fischer said. “When you come to an Off Lease Only location, not only are you going to save thousands, you’re also going to see something incredible.”
With a focus on customer satisfaction, Off Lease Only is DealerRater’s Used Car Dealer of the Year in Florida, Edmunds.com’s Five-Star Premier Dealer and has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.
The company prides itself on transparency, offering a free five-day/ 500-mile exchange policy and no hidden fees. Online car financing is available and trade-ins are welcome.
Not since the high-flying days of Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith has Dallas … hosted the National Automobile Dealer Association convention.
After a 28-year absence, Dallas will be the site of NADA Show in 2023, the association said Monday in a blog post.
NADA held its annual convention there in 1995 and 1992.
“NADA’s board of directors has decided to add Dallas back to the list of cities that host the NADA Show,” said Steve Pitt, NADA senior vice president of conventions and expositions, in the post.
Pitt added: “Dallas is now one of the top five convention cities in the country. The convention center has expanded. Economic development has revitalized the downtown area with new hotels, restaurants and entertainment districts.”
It joins Las Vegas and New Orleans as NADA Show hosts during the first five years of the 2020s. That rotation is as follows:
- 2020 – Las Vegas (Feb. 14-17)
- 2021 – New Orleans (Jan. 21-24)
- 2022 – Las Vegas (March 10-13)
- 2023 – Dallas (Jan. 26-29)
- 2024 – Las Vegas (Feb. 2-5)
The convention will return to San Francisco this coming winter for NADA Show 2019, which is slated for Jan. 24-27 at the Moscone Center.
“We’re encouraging more dealership managers to attend the upcoming show, which offers numerous career development opportunities, such as the educational workshops and training sessions, including the new NADA Professional Series training program designed specifically for new and high-potential dealership managers,” NADA Show committee chair Annette DiLorenzo Thayer said.
NADA last hosted the convention in San Francisco in 2015.
Amid the NAAA Convention during Used Car Week in Scottsdale, Ariz., DealShield announced its purchase protection solution will now be available for dealers and buyers at Lake Charles Auto Auction.
The Lake Charles, La., facility marks DealShield’s 40th independent auction. DealShield’s DS360 Guarantee, which helps dealers protect their purchases and return vehicles for any reason, will be available at the auction location this month, bringing the total number of auctions for the DealShield network to 115.
“We are excited to be able to offer DealShield to our clients as we know so many of our clients will take advantage of this incredible service,” said Matt Pedersen, owner of Lake Charles Auto Auction. “At LCAA we strive to provide unmatched customer service along with keeping up to date on the latest and greatest auto auction products, so teaming up with DealShield is just another avenue for us to enable our clients to ‘discover the difference.’”
So, how does it work, and what does it mean for dealers buying at Lake Charles Auto Auction? According to DealShield, with the DS360 Guarantee, dealers can purchase a vehicle at a participating operating location in-lane or online via Simulcast or OVE. And if it doesn’t suit their needs or meet their expectatinos, they can return it to any location in the DealShield network for a full refund of the vehicle purchase price and buy fee. There is no arbitration required.
Dealers can opt in for a 21-day guarantee, or upgrade to the 30-day program. The company explained DS360 subscribers can also extend their protection window further when they transport their purchases with Ready Logistics through a partnership solution called “Ready. Set. Pause.” This allows dealers to “stop the clock” on their days of coverage while a vehicle is in transit.
In the more than six years since it launched, over 1.4 million vehicles with $20 billion in vehicle value have been guaranteed by DealShield.
“Since 2012, dealers have told us countless times how DealShield has helped them grow their businesses by giving them more confidence in their wholesale purchases,” said Stu Dressler, associate vice president of assurance at Cox Automotive. “We’re excited to broaden our network of independent auction partners and further our mission to cover transactions anywhere dealers buy.”
In other recent news from the company, in late October, DealShield announced it integrated with the EDGE AuctionOS platform from remarketing technology provider Auction Edge.
This means that more than 100 independent auction partners of Auction Edge can now tap into the services of DealShield.
Southern California automaker Karma Automotive is taking another step toward e-commerce for customers of their luxury electric vehicles.
The automaker is partnering with Drive Motors, builder of online car buying solutions, to provide customers at Karma’s company-owned dealership in Orange County, Calif. with an online buying solution.
Through the integration, according to the news release, Karma Revero shoppers now have an option for a “simple, online-buying experience.”
Drive Motors, which hit the market three years ago, specializes is working with dealerships to build online-checkout tools that integrate into the dealership’s own websites.
In other words transforming them into “e-commerce destinations,” the companies pointed out.
“Having our online shopping experience seamlessly powered by Drive Motors’ technology reinforces Karma’s reputation for luxury and innovation,” Ehren Bragg, store director for Karma Orange County, said in the news release announcing the partnership. “Additionally, our partnership enables us to expand Karma’s retail footprint beyond our current local markets, providing unprecedented accessibility to potential customers across the United States.”
Now, Karma Orange County shoppers can finance or lease a Karma Revero almost completely online — the only thing required at the dealership is a physical signature.
"We know offering a sophisticated and convenient online destination is paramount to Karma as a company, as well as their discerning clientele, and we are proud to partner with them in offering an unparalleled online-checkout experience,” said Aaron Krane, chief executive and founder of Drive Motors, in the news release.
Earlier this month, it was announced Lithia Motors’ former project lead for online sales is now leading strategic partnerships at Drive Motors.
Chris Gugliotta was named head of strategic partnerships at Drive Motors, as well, following two stops at Lithia and time with Dealer.com/Cox Automotive.
Jasen Rice learned well his lessons as an inventory performance manager for vAuto. He left that organization in 2013 to start Lotpop, a company providing online and on-lot inventory analysis and management services for smaller dealerships.
Zach Klempf worked part-time at a dealership while attending Emory University. He “fell in love” with the business, but not with the siloed legacy technologies used by most dealers then. Upon graduation, intending to go into finance, Klempf returned to his first love and in 2014 created Selly Automotive, a technology company specializing in mobile-first CRM and lead management software for dealerships.
Both men have acquired essential used-car sales insight to share with independent dealers that if applied to their dealerships can help them sell more cars.
Rice believes the first place any dealer who wants to increase sales should start is to improve online and on-lot inventory presentation. While inventory mix is significant, and how vehicles show on the lot important, it is imperative that dealers put more focus on how they market and merchandise inventory online, said Rice, who started his career as a dealership Internet sales manager.
“Get the [online] inventory right, and drive traffic to the doors,” Rice said, speaking recently on a DealerRefresh.com “Refresh Friday” show.
“If the dealer doesn’t have the right inventory merchandised right, there’s no need for a lead management system,” he added.
When interviewed afterward by Auto Remarketing, Rice explained that inventory not presented well online, where most buyers shop first, is a waste of time, dollars — and sales, he said.
“Price cars correctly, on the Internet and on the lot,” he added. “Write complete and compelling descriptions for online listings. Wash cars inside and out before imaging them and loading them to your website or lead provider sites. Correct Check Engine and other codes before moving vehicles to the sales line.
Only then, he suggested, lead management efforts make sense.
A lead management system describes a multitude of functions related to helping dealers create, capture, distribute and analyze the value of sales leads. It can help the dealer calculate various lead source returns on investment based on lead-to-sale conversion rates, cost per lead, and most important, cost per sale. Knowing this helps a dealer fine-tune marketing spend.
These experts noted that lead management efforts relying on manual lead tracking and fulfillment systems just do not work. In the busyness of the business, lead response and follow-up are too easily neglected — and forgotten.
That wastes money for dealers purchasing leads through third-party providers or paying for pay-per-click services to drive online car shoppers to their website inventory pages.
Even dealers using CRM (customer relationship management) systems lacking lead management functions may not see an improvement in how they capture, track, follow up and analyze leads, lead performance and provider value.
Klempf said 70 percent of independent dealers do not use lead management tools.
“We recently shadowed an agent on visits to several east coast dealers, and most of them did not have the technology to manage leads,” said Klempf.
Instead, spreadsheets, Gmail accounts and pencil-and-paper notes remain popular, but costly. From such “systems,” lead response is slow. Leads responded to after 20 minutes are unproductive.
A dealer who struggled to track leads manually is Alex Tovstanovsky, who with his father Igor owns and operates Prestige Motor Works in Naperville, Ill., outside Chicago. “We attempted to track leads manually, which didn’t work at all, before switching to Selly in 2015,” Tovstanovsky said.
The dealership retails 25 to 30 vehicles a month. From major third-party lead providers, the business receives from five to 20 leads a day. If a lead isn’t pursued by the sales department within 15 minutes of receipt, the lead management system bounces the opportunity to another sales associate.
“If a sales associate isn’t attentive enough to his or her desktop, phone app or email where leads are pushed, that individual is either not very good at sales or tied up, so the opportunity goes to someone who will follow up. I am cutthroat about this and use the task settings in my Selly system to make sure that leads and follow up are handled the way we specify in the time frame we specify,” Tovstanovsky said.
Klempf also noted that many independent dealers fail to leverage the lead potential of their own website inventory pages.
“Most independent dealers’ marketing investment goes to Autotrader, TrueCar, Cars.com and CarGurus, and the organic leads from their own website are forgotten about. A healthy balance of third-party lead providers and high-quality leads through a dealer website are a recipe for success,” Klempf said.
Prestige Motor Works, a NIADA 2017 Illinois Quality Dealer of the Year, relies on assertive organic SEO, which accounts for 30 percent of leads to the store’s website. The remaining leads are from visitors having first looked at Selly inventory on third-party sites who then migrate to the dealer’s website as the customer nears a decision.
Managing leads profitably is a challenge for an independent dealer, who is likely wearing multiple hats. A day spent selling, making inventory, acquisition and floor planning decisions, and administering rent and payroll has used up most hours of the day.
“The biggest challenge for independent dealers beyond inventory is interfacing with how the majority of car buyers shop today, which is online,” Klempf said.
Not following up leads within 20 minutes means wasted opportunity, as by that time shoppers have moved on or otherwise forgotten about you. For franchised dealerships, internet leads account for 20 percent of car sales. Data about independent dealership lead activity is apparently not available.
Klempf suggested dealers consider the following to improve digital marketing and lead management results:
1. Think of the dealer website not as another $99 a month expense, but as a digital showroom where the first impression of the dealership is sealed. Be sure the site leverages search engine optimization techniques and is mobile friendly, meaning it looks as great on a smartphone as it does on a laptop or desktop screen.2.
2. To improve website visitor engagement, include an “About the Staff” page with photos and bios. Add activity apps such as a trade evaluator or a credit application. If staff includes bilingual individuals, promote that boldly on the website, especially on inventory pages.
3. Use a CRM/lead management tool(s) for the auto-capture of leads if staff cannot respond quickly. The tools should enable auto-reminders, track leads, appointments and closings and generate reports to help management analyze lead source return on investment, and adjust marketing spend (see charts above).
4. Consider pay per click marketing for the dealership website to improve lead generation.
5. Use text-compliant messaging that sends out opt-In SMS text messages to customers and allow them to opt-out if they wish to receive no further contact.
6. Differentiate the dealership — Klempf cited dealers who promote “out-of-state” buyer programs, for which the dealer provides financial assistance; travel and lodging reimbursement, for example.
7. Create excitement with inventory merchandising to draw shoppers to the lot and into the store. One independent dealer selling used high-end imports built a man cave in its showroom, and another put a pool table on the floor.
8. Be data-driven, because any dealer who tracks leads, inventory and F&I product sales will understand those parts of the business better and have the correct information for tweaking key performance aspects of the dealership.
9. Leverage social media, such as Facebook Marketplace, for listing inventory, encouraging customer reviews, and for chatting with shoppers via Facebook Messenger. “LinkedIn is also an interesting social network to communicate with customers. Changes in member profiles, such as an announcement of a new job, should remind dealers who monitor this site that a new job often means time for a new car,” Klempf said.
“For me, the most important number our lead management system makes available is our cost per sale or ROI on a specific marketing or ad medium,” said Tovstanovsky, “so we know exactly how each lead source performs. It is these numbers that I use to negotiate rates with lead providers. I suggest other dealers also measure their vendors — try them for three months, evaluate what their cost per sale is, and then renegotiate your fees with them.”
Rick Ricart is now the president of Ricart Automotive Group.
He was previously the vice president and director of sales and marketing at the Columbus, Ohio dealer group.
Ricart will be among the speakers at Used Car Week next week in Scottsdale, Ariz.
He will be a panelist on the Executive Suite: The View from the Top discussion, which will also include:
- Becca Polak, president/chief legal officer, TradeRev/KAR Auction Services
- Fredrick Stanfield, senior vice president, Assurance and Reconditioning, Cox Automotive
- Mike Stanton, senior vice president/COO, NADA
That session will be moderated by Auto Remarketing group publisher Bill Zadeits and is sponsored by Ally.
One of the first things potential vehicle buyers often want to know is how much their monthly payment will be. Car and Driver and DealerScience now are collaborating to give consumers that information.
Hearst Autos, parent to Car and Driver, and DealerScience on Wednesday announced that consumers researching and shopping for vehicles online will now have access to a payment tool that is designed to offer accurate payments powered by DealerScience’s proprietary software.
Officials explained the accurate payment means that a full account of the price, including dealer and OEM incentives, state and federal taxes, and any fees, are included in what payment the consumer sees on a dealer’s website.
While accurate pricing is common on many other retail shopping sites, the company insisted this information hasn’t existed in the auto shopping process until now.
“This new tool offered by Car and Driver and DealerScience enables consumers to truly complete a critical and necessary step in the online car shopping and buying process. Consumers prefer to use their time at a dealership learning about and test driving the car they intend to buy, rather than spending unwanted hours filling out paperwork and haggling over price and payment,” said Nick Matarazzo, president of Hearst Autos.
“This tool significantly accelerates the process for consumers and instantly improves dealer and OEM trust with consumers because they can now deliver on something that their potential customers have long wanted,” Matarazzo continued.
A recent car shopping study by Jumpstart Automotive Media revealed that 61 percent of consumers surveyed said that accurate pricing and payments were one of the most important considerations that influenced their car purchase decision.
DealerScience’s Penny-Perfect Payments is a proprietary tool that is geared to shift the pricing paradigm when vehicle-shopping online.
“We recognized that automotive digital retailing experiences broke down when the consumer was offered different payments at different points in the sales process,” DealerScience president Andrew Gordon said.
“At my family's Honda store, we realized that the best way to build trust throughout the car-buying process was to ensure consistency for the consumer from the website to the showroom,” Gordon continued. “So, we built the DealerScience engine to calculate penny-perfect payments, optimizing deals for the lender, term, interest, and taxes. Now we can present those accurate payments to consumers through lease and finance website buttons, automated specials, and payment search.
“We’re proud to be powering Car and Driver payments by DealerScience,” Gordon went on to say.
Contact At Once reached a new threshold of dealerships using its tool on a mobile device.
The LivePerson company announced on Tuesday that 10,000 dealerships have now migrated to its web-based app, CAO! Connect, meaning two in three stores using Contact At Once applications are now taking advantage of the benefits of its latest innovations.
CAO! Connect can help dealerships enable conversational commerce with shoppers and owners, showcasing inventory, rich media and digital retailing tools. Shoppers and agents can see the same content in the conversation window.
Tapping on the YouTube preview, for example, will open a slide-out to display and play shared media. Inventory information and vehicle history reports are readily available for agents when they’re engaging in conversation with shoppers.
“CAO! Connect is fantastic,” said Marty Phillips, internet manager for Harry Robinson Buick GMC located in Fort Smith, Ark. "It allows my Internet team to engage with online shoppers and really communicate with them in a way that gets the customer through the front door.
“You can’t sell anything to a voicemail or an email that never responds back. Contact At Once helps my team connect with the customer from the word, go,” Phillips went on to say.
Dealers and automakers worldwide use Contact At Once to message with consumers looking for new and used vehicles, service and parts.
“Our goal is to help dealers have more fruitful conversations with car shoppers and owners, and move them closer to the dealership visit,” said Yuval Lubowich, Contact At Once vice president of product development.
“We are excited to pass this major milestone, with over 10,000 dealerships using Connect across the globe within the first four months of launch. The interactivity between the agent and consumer has been elevated to new levels,” Lubowich added.
The company recently announced that it is now a customer service platform (CSP) for Apple Business Chat, supporting another way for consumers to reach local dealerships and manufacturers when they have questions.
Auto Remarketing recently hosted an informational webinar with Contact At Once to explain how Apple Business Chat can help. The webinar can be viewed here.
Store personnel that leverage Auto/Mate Dealership Systems now do not have to toggle between screens as they complete their work for customers.
On Monday, Auto/Mate announced the integration of its DMS with Kelley Blue Book Values. Auto/Mate customers no longer have to visit another website or utilize a separate application to calculate the value of a vehicle.
Kelley Blue Book Values for new vehicles include Invoice, MSRP and new car fair purchase price. Kelley Blue Book Values for trade-in vehicles include typical listing price, used-car fair purchase price, lending and auction.
“The trade-in valuation process is one of consumers’ least favorite parts of buying a car,” said Mike Esposito, president and chief executive officer of Auto/Mate. “Consumers trust Kelley Blue Book valuations, and being able to quickly assess that information allows salespeople to complete the sale faster and increase customer satisfaction.”
Kelley Blue Book can help streamline the vehicle trade-in and purchase process from online to in-showroom with information and services to promote confidence among all parties involved. Valuations can be accessed through the desk/mate and vehicle merchandising modules in the sales suite.
“With the latest valuation information readily available, buyers and sellers can make the best possible vehicle decision,” said Damon Bennett, senior director of syndication for Kelley Blue Book.
“Both parties come to the table with the same trusted information, helping facilitate the negotiation with ease, using data backed by more than 90 years of expertise,” Bennett went on to say.
Auto/Mate's integration program, Open/Mate, is based on open standards, allowing third-party vendors to easily integrate with the DMS.
For more information, visit www.automate.com.
Record earnings, the role of diversification in achieving those earnings and the prominence of used vehicles as part of that diversification were among the main themes of the Penske Automotive Group third quarter 2018 earnings results.
PAG and its chairman and CEO Roger Penske reported during the results call on Oct. 25 that the record quarter was driven by diversification, and the company’s standalone used-vehicle supercenters helped lead the way in that diversity, along with Penske heavy-duty truck dealerships and truck leasing investments.
Roger Penske expanded on the strength of used vehicles during the question-and-answer period at the end of the results call, noting that consolidated reconditioning locations and double discounting played a role in the company’s record earnings.
“Double discounting means you have an Internet price, someone comes in on an Internet price, and the first thing your salesperson does is give him a discount,” Penske said. “So, I think it’s managing your team. Double discounting has really helped us to maintain our used, and both new and used gross profit as you’ve seen that increase during the quarter.”
PAG’s earnings results were mostly positive all around. For the three months ended Sept. 30, 2018, income from continuing operations attributable to common shareholders increased 38.0 percent to a record $130.1 million, and related record earnings per share increased 39.1 percent to $1.53 when compared to the same period last year.
Total revenue of $5.7 billion represented an increase of 2.4 percent, while same-store retail revenue increased 0.2 percent.
Roger Penske elaborated on the benefits of diversification in a quote from the press release that accompanied the earnings report, noting that the strong earnings in the quarter were due to increases in new-vehicle, used-vehicle and finance and insurance gross profit per retail unit sold, along with a 70-basis-point increase in service and parts gross margin.
He also gave attention to the strength of the company’s standalone used-vehicle supercenter operations in the U.K., stating that the supercenters, along with Penske’s premium brand mix, helped contribute to another record quarter for the company’s U.K. business.
Supercenter strength
Further emphasizing the importance of the company’s used-vehicle supercenters during the earnings call, Roger Penske noted that the company expects to retail nearly 70,000 vehicles through the supercenters in 2018, and they will generate about $1.2 billion in revenue.
He added that the five supercenters in the U.S. and nine in the U.K. use a one-price, no-haggle approach. Year-to-date, the standalone used dealerships retailed 56,000 units and generated $1 billion in revenue and a return on sales of approximately 3.9 percent. Penske noted during the earnings call that the average transaction price is $15,000, and the variable gross profit per unit is almost $2,200, for a variable gross margin of 14.5 percent.
The revenue mix for these stores is 84 percent used vehicles, 9 percent wholesale, 6 percent F&I, and 1 percent service and parts. Gross profit contribution is 42 percent used, 2 percent wholesale, 39 percent F&I, and 17 percent service and parts.
“We expect to grow the standalone used business through a combination of e-commerce initiatives and new market introductions,” Penske said. “We're in the process of developing four new standalone sites, which we expect to open in the latter half of 2019.”
He discussed how his company sourced used vehicles in response to a question from an earnings call participant. Penske noted that trade-ins were “the first level of acquisition of used,” followed by auctions. Internet purchases were another sourcing method.
“And then, there’s a tremendous amount of lease returns coming back … not only in ’17 (and) ’18 but beyond into ’19,” he said. “We have the opportunity to make big purchases on those. In fact, in the U.K., I know they buy sometimes between 1,000 and 1,500 vehicles at a time, which gives them very good pricing and a broad mix of vehicles, so those would be the key areas of acquisition.”
Technology was another main theme of the earnings call. Roger Penske went on to discuss the technology in use at the used-car supercenters in the U.S. and U.K., and a presentation accompanying the earnings report noted that certain U.K. standalone used-vehicle supercenters allow customers to reserve a vehicle online. That technology has allowed the company to use the fundamentals of determining what it buys at what price and for what location.
“I think with the technology they developed, and this is in-house, it’s given us the ability to buy the right vehicle to give us the turn on our inventory,” Penske said.
Another questioner asked Penske if PAG could double the revenue of its standalone used-vehicle business in the next two to three years. Penske answered that although acquisitions are not currently at the top of the company’s list at the moment, “acquisitions, plus organic growth, plus the new sites will give us a chance to double that revenue.”
Going back to the opening remarks, Penske concluded his remarks by noting that in a strong U.S. economy and with the strength of the business’ premium and luxury automotive brand mix, the continued strength of the class 8 heavy-duty truck market in North America, the growing standalone used vehicle operation, and the benefits PAG continues to receive from its truck leasing investments, “We remain confident and optimistic about the future of our business.”
