Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Tuesday that Carfax plans to invest a total of $15.8 million to expand its headquarters and upgrade its nearby data center operation.
Expecting to create 120 new jobs, Carfax’s current plans include a $5 million investment to expand its Fairfax County headquarters in Centreville, Va., as well as a further $10.8 million investment to upgrade its data center in nearby Loudoun County.
“Carfax is a great example of a company that is diversifying the Fairfax County economic base as it grows,” said Gerald Gordon, the president and chief executive officer of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA). “This is a leading firm in the automotive sector that is taking full advantage of the excellent workforce we have, and I am delighted to see that the company is expanding its data center capabilities in the Commonwealth as well as expanding its headquarters here.”
Dick Raines, Carfax’s president, explained some of the thought process involved behind bolstering his company’s infrastructure.
“Fairfax County is a special place that has been home to Carfax for more than 20 years,” Raines said. “With ready access to the I-66 corridor, our corporate headquarters in Centreville has proven a desirable location for our staff, the majority of whom call the county home. We’ve maintained a diverse workforce, with myriad career opportunities in sales, marketing, account management, business development, technology, product management, IT, finance, and legal. Our staff consistently votes us a best place to work and a big part of that success is made possible by our residence in Fairfax County.”
According to the FCEDA, it worked with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership to secure the headquarters expansion for Virginia. McAuliffe approved a $150,000 grant from the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund to assist Fairfax County with the project; funding and services to support the company’s employee training activities will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.
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.
Consumers hit the Web for Cyber Monday to start the week off with some shopping, and one North Carolina dealership took the vehicle deals it offered for the event beyond its website and onto Facebook.
Bryan Honda, one of the state’s oldest dealerships, announced last week it would be selling vehicles in real-time directly within the social media platform, starting on the online sales holiday.
Bryan Honda customers will now be able to purchase vehicles inside the Facebook module by way of Stripe.com, the dealership shared.
Bryan Honda will be launching the new sales tool by beta testing a few of its new and used models for sale. Consumers using the Bryan Honda Facebook page can watch videos detailing the new and used cars offered, as well as buy vehicles directly through the dealership’s Facebook page. Store management shared the videos will offer a first-person perspective of each vehicle.
Rico Glover, digital strategist and certified social and community manager at Bryan Honda, said, “While most dealerships are still wondering if social media can sell vehicles, we’re blowing company records away. Some days we sell more vehicles in one day just using digital than others sell in a month, and Facebook is our No. 1 lead referral for engagement. We are the only dealership in the country with a sales team dedicated to social sales.”
The dealership has been working to stay at the forefront of tech evolution in auto sales, and Bryan Honda general manager Tim Roussell explained the store has taken cues from some of the online sales giants. Think Amazon shopping for cars.
Roussell made the following comparison: “We’re always trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology. We studied and modeled our dealership from companies like Amazon, Netflix and Zappos, and then we integrate our processes and systems to emulate them. You could call us Hondazon.”
Stay tuned to Auto Remarketing as we check in with Bryan Honda to see how this first foray into social selling goes for the N.C. store.
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.
Reynolds and Reynolds announced that it has joined on as an NIADA Member Benefit Partner for the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association.
Reynolds Document Services will now provide the business forms and sales contracts, compliance services, branding products and other dealership supplies to the NIADA’s dealer members in North America.
“We’re pleased to join the NIADA National Member Benefit program,” said Jerry Kirwan, Reynolds Document Services’ senior vice president and general manager. “We’ve worked informally alongside NIADA and its members for a number of years. This agreement helps solidify our commitment to providing a broad portfolio of business documents and supplies that help independent auto dealers manage their compliance risk, brand their stores and improve their operational efficiencies.”
Reynolds and Reynolds, in business since 1866, has provided automotive documents since the 1920s. Today, the company provides the Reynolds LAW 553 Universal Retail Installment Sales Contract, which the company says is the most widely accepted document in automotive finance.
“Our National Member Benefit program provides our members with an extensive, highly vetted roster of partners that supply the kinds of products and services our members use in their business every day,” said Scott Lilja, NIADA’s senior vice president of member services. “We’re pleased to now add Reynolds to the list of approved providers for business supply services.
“Reynolds documents and supplies are another set of tools we can offer to help our members streamline their processes, reduce their compliance risk and enhance the transparency of the vehicle sales transaction with their customers,” he continued.
A recent study commissioned by the National Automobile Dealers Association reveals that vehicle trade-in values could decline by an average of $1,210 if legislation were to pass that forbade dealers from selling used-vehicles with open recalls.
The J.D. Power study, which NADA commissioned, is titled “An Economic Assessment of Trade-In Value Reduction Caused by Preventing Auto Dealers from Selling Passenger Vehicles with any Open Recall.”
It estimates that the value of some vehicles could decline by as much as $5,713.
The report was commissioned in response to proposed legislation earlier this year from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., titled as the “Used Car Safety Recall Repair Act,” that would ground used-vehicles with open recalls from being sold or leased until a remedy has been enacted. The act was voted down during a U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation markup hearing this summer.
Jonathan Banks, the author of the report and the executive analyst at the Used Car Guide division of J.D. Power, says, among other issues, that the unknown amount of time to reach each individual remedy really throws a wrench in the pricing and remarketing process.
"Assuming a repair delay that is shorter than the actual repair delay is a risky proposition for a dealer, and thus they are more likely to act as if they believe the range of repair delays will be on the high end of the range of repair delays observed in the past for recalls of similar scale and complexity," Banks explained. "In a hypothetical scenario, a lack of clear information could reduce the trade-in value offered to a consumer by hundreds of dollars if a trade-in manager were to overestimate a 30-day recall delay by an additional 30 days."
The report reached that $1,210 average price decline by weighing the average based on both in-brand trade-ins and out-of-brand trade-ins, the latter of which has to factor in the additional costs incurred from holding a vehicle until the repair can be made by transporting the vehicle to an in-brand dealer.
If you’d like to download the full report, click here.
On Monday, FCA US highlighted the national rollout of its Degrees@Work program and the newly developed Degrees@Work Family offering with Strayer University, designed to provide a no-cost, no-debt college degree to participating brand dealership employees and their immediate family members.
The automaker believes FCA US is not only the first and only company in the automotive industry to offer the programs, but it’s also the first U.S. company of any type to provide a no-cost, no-debt college degree to both employees and their immediate families.
Officials hope the expanded Degrees@Work program and the new Degrees@Work Family offering will enable FCA US dealerships to attract top talent, improve the skillset of existing employees, lessen the burden of paying for college for families and significantly increase employee retention.
“After the success of the initial regional launch, we’re thrilled to expand the benefit not only to all of our dealerships nationwide, but also to dealership employees’ immediate family members," said Al Gardner, the OEM’s head of dealer network development.
“When we began to seek out a partner to provide education benefits to our employees and their families, we focused on finding a top-notch institution,” Gardner said. “Strayer has the resources and the experience to provide a world-class education to our employees and their families.”
Strayer University, which is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, will offer associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees to all participating FCA US dealership employees and their immediate family members. Strayer University is a postsecondary institution with a more than 120-year history educating working adult students online and at campus locations across the country.
“We are proud to partner with a true innovator like FCA US to offer this first-of-its-kind employee benefit,” said Karl McDonnell, chief executive officer of Strayer Education, which owns Strayer University.
“At Strayer, we’re dedicated to improving the way education and business work together. We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with FCA US to tackle college affordability and the skills gap head on,” McDonnell continued.
The automaker went on to mention the program was developed using input from dealers and their employees. Depending on the selected program of study, courses will range from business administration and accounting to education, information systems and other areas.
Courses will be offered online with 24/7 access for flexibility around work schedules, as well as at Strayer's campus locations throughout the United States.
Dealers’ employees can have their training and work experience evaluated for college credit to accelerate completion of a degree program.
“Families are often faced with tough choices about how to pay for college,” Gardner said. “Expanding this benefit to employees’ immediate family members positions our dealer network as the 'employers of choice.’”
For more information, watch the video at the top of this page or visit http://fcadegrees.strayeruniversity.edu.
Mazda North American Operations is collaborating with four nonprofit organizations for its Mazda Drive for Good event that runs throughout the 2015 holiday season.
Running from November 23 to January 4, MNAO is partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, American Red Cross, American Heart Association and Mazda Foundation (USA) Inc.
Customers who purchase or lease a new Mazda during the event will be able to designate $150 to one of the four national nonprofits or choose from 46 other local organizations.
Mazda also plans to donate one hour of charitable services from its employees, dealers and business partners across the nation for every vehicle test drive during the event, to be acted upon in the 2016 calendar year.
"Mazda Drive for Good isn't about selling cars. It is about giving back and building awareness," said Jim O'Sullivan, president and chief executive officer at MNAO. "Many people may think that we are building awareness for Mazda, but part of our goal is to build awareness for our nonprofit partners, that helps them long term, not just during the Mazda Drive for Good event."
Consumers will have access to a dedicated website for the campaign here.
CDK Global, in partnership with Zipwhip, a cloud-based texting provider, has created the former’s Text Connect solution, allowing dealer employees to send and receive texts from customers.
Employees with the system can text their customers via any Internet-enabled device, using existing landlines and toll-free phone numbers.
"Nearly half of consumers say they prefer SMS communication with their dealership for sales and service," said Bob Karp, president of Automotive Retail North America at CDK Global. "It's clear that consumers want to communicate with business differently than ever before. Text Connect enables dealerships to turn existing phone lines into communication tools that reach customers in their preferred method."
CDK says its research found that a majority of dealership employees are using their own personal cell phones to communicate with customers.
The company highlighted that Text Connect can also be used to deliver service-related notifications to customers, such as service appointment reminders, vehicle status updates while it is being serviced and parts delivery notifications, among many other options. The system also serves as a detailed, unified source of record keeping for communication with consumers, compared to messages being spread across many different systems and employees’ various personal devices.
Want to learn more? Check out the Text Connect site here.
