This year’s end-of-summer online car-shopping drop was less notable than prior-year seasonal changes, according to new Dealer.com data. Dealer.com’s October DataView index found that total dealership website visits in September dropped by 6 percent compared to August. Meanwhile last year, Dealer.com found a 9-percent drop in total traffic in September compared to August. And in 2015, […] [Read More]

Sonic Automotive’s newest EchoPark used-car store in Colorado Springs, Colo., was “cash positive” in its third month of operation — about six months ahead of when the company’s initial EchoPark stores reached cash positive positions, said Sonic president Scott Smith. “EchoPark results were in line with expectations,” Smith said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call […] [Read More]

Pearl Technology Holdings announced it has expanded its relationship with Experian to integrate its propensity scoring platform, designed to target consumers who have the highest propensity to make a purchase or lease a vehicle within a particular period of time. Pearl now has the capability to calculate more than 1,000 elements when scoring a consumer’s […] [Read More]

Our guest today is Brian Geitner, the president of Cox Automotive Media Solutions. That group, of course, includes the Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book and Dealer.com brands.  In a late-September interview at Cox Enterprises in Atlanta, Joe and Brian talk about how the "Big 3" brands in the group use advanced analytic tools. Plus, we dive into their improvements […] [Read More]

Leaders from Black Book and General Motors Financial recently used the adjectives “steady” and “stable” when describing how the wholesale market is behaving. The latest Black Book Market Insights report indicated used vehicles across most segments are depreciating at a “steady” rate. Editors determined only two vehicle segments — compact vans and sub-compact luxury crossovers […] [Read More]

To use sports analogies, the letter might be a Hail Mary on the last play of a football game or swinging for the fences with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of a baseball game. On Monday, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray penned a one-page, five-paragraph letter to President Trump, […] [Read More]

CDK North America will have a new president on Dec. 1. Current executive vice president of business transformation Daniel Flynn is succeeding Robert Karp, who is leaving CDK. CDK Global announced the changes Tuesday. “Dan Flynn is a seasoned operating executive who has seen significant success bringing process, discipline and rigor to the execution of […] [Read More]

In the words of General Motors Financial president and chief executive officer Dan Berce, the paper the captive is adding “continues to skew to more prime originations.” Berce made his latest proclamation when GM Financial shared its third-quarter results, which included $2.2 billion of prime originations. As Berce explained during the company’s latest conference call, […] [Read More]

CarMax chief operating officer Cliff Wood will retire by the end of next summer, the company said Monday. Taking on the COO role at that point will be Ed Hill, who has been CarMax’s executive vice president, strategy and business transformation since 2016. Wood has been with the company since 1993, when he was a […] [Read More]

GM Financial announced Monday that it has chosen the Ronald McDonald House at Boston to receive a vehicle as apart of its Cool Cars for Remarkable Kids program. The Ronald McDonald House at Boston Harbor is the 18th Ronald McDonald House to receive a vehicle since the program launched earlier this year. This month, GM Financial also […] [Read More]