On the heels of introducing new car vending machines in both Orlando, Fla., and the Washington, D.C., area this month, Carvana has launched its largest car vending machine right at home in Tempe, Ariz. — not far from where the e-commerce platform for buying used cars was founded in Phoenix just six years ago. The new facility […] [Read More]

By the time you read this I will have celebrated my first year of retirement.  A wonderful year it has been! Wiring, plumbing, demolition and construction projects went better than expected. (Well, most of them.) Plus, a week in the Caribbean with my wife — thank you Cox Automotive for the retirement gift. For you […] [Read More]

TrueCar chief executive officer Chip Perry described how traditional dealership messaging sometimes fails to address the most important trust gap used-vehicle shoppers have. Perry reiterated TrueCar research that pinpointed five pieces of information that consumers want but they often are the most difficult to learn from dealerships. Those elements included: — Monthly payment  — Easy […] [Read More]

HGreg.com has confirmed plans to open a new North Miami location this summer — the company’s third pre-owned car dealership. Plans for the new store come just months after the company announced the opening of its HGreg.com Broward location in February. HGreg now has a total of four locations across Florida: its three used-car dealerships, along with the HGreg LUX […] [Read More]

Search Optics announced that it has named a new North America president Tuesday, who will head the company’s operations in the U.S. and Canadian markets. Chosen for the position is David Cox, who brings more than 20 years of product innovation, digital marketing, sales and operations experience. At Connect-Auto, an automotive ecommerce software-as-a-service (SaaS) start-up, […] [Read More]

Automotive digital marketing and retailing technology provider DriveItNow’s patent-pending Shop-by-Payment digital marketing tool has been integrated into DealerPeak’s recently launched CarDog Solutions websites for independent dealers. From DealerPeak’s unified Web-based platform, online visitors can access DriveItNow's Shop-by-Payment tool to determine what combination of vehicles and finance programs they qualify for in real-time, the company announced Tuesday. “DealerPeak […] [Read More]

Alpha Auto Group, a dealership group based in Toronto, has set up shop in the U.S.  The retailer announced Monday it has purchased Oregon-based Wilsonville Group, a two-store operation that was acquired through AAG’s Alpha USA Holdings subsidiary. Alpha said Wilsonville Toyota and Subaru combined to pull in $346 million (CAD) in revenue last year […] [Read More]

Arguably since its inception some two decades ago in Silicon Valley, OPENLANE has been “pushing the envelope” when it comes to wholesale car marketplace technology. That continued in a big way Monday when parent company KAR Auction Services announced a “reimagined” version of the upstream vehicle auction platform designed to help OPENLANE’s 40-plus OEM and […] [Read More]

Dealerships can now leverage reporting capabilities provided by a communication platform that’s built to track, analyze, report and even re-route phone calls. Automotive technology provider dealerTELtoday announced Monday that its solution is designed to provide helpful data that can help dealerships backup marketing costs. Along with automatically adding all of the information to the dealership’s CRM system, […] [Read More]

Dealers managing vehicle-to-government (V2Gov) transactions across five select states can now more easily manage tax, title and registration processes by way of a new DMS integration with Auto/Mate Dealership Systems. Via its integration program, Open/Mate, Auto/Mate announced Monday that Vitu dealers who are interested in streamlining their registration and titling process for new and used […] [Read More]