“The automotive shopping experience is becoming much more personal.” This quote from DealerRater general manager Jamie Oldershaw might seem like a departure from a retail automotive industry that is rapidly moving to a more digitalized car-shopping process. Except that’s exactly the environment from which an effort to personalize car shopping begins. In mid-September, Cars.com — which […] [Read More]

The brighter the car color, the brighter its future retention. According to an iSeeCars.com analysis of 2.1 million used vehicles, yellow vehicles depreciated an average of just 27 percent in value after three years, and orange cars depreciated 30.6 percent. These school bus-inspired colors led the class, as they had the lowest depreciation rates among the […] [Read More]

GPB Capital affiliate Capstone Automotive Group said Monday it now has a majority equity stake in Prime Motor Group. With the stake in Prime — which has more than 25 businesses throughout Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine — this marks Capstone’s first foray into New England. The acquisition also adds the Acura, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, […] [Read More]

CarMax has plans to bring on more than 2,000 new hires by the end of the year, the company announced Monday. The used-car retailer is mostly looking for sales consultants, technicians, detailers and inventory associates companywide. Several CarMax stores are also hiring for positions within its business offices, according to CarMax. In addition to the headquarters in […] [Read More]

PERQ is the latest company to join the expanding CDK Global Partner Program, the company announced Thursday. The program recently reached over 350 partners and 450 unique applications, according to CDK. “The continued expansion of the CDK Partner Program plays a critical role in our ability to enable end-to-end automotive commerce for our customers,” CDK […] [Read More]

Auto defaults continued their cyclical move higher in September, crossing the 1-percent threshold and landing at nearly the highest spot in three years. The data through September reviewed by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian showed that auto finance defaults increased 10 basis points to 1.05 percent. That’s the highest level analysts have seen since […] [Read More]

Tommy Moore Jr. initially thought what sprouted to be First Investors Financial Services would just be a sideline business in auto finance. He was concentrated on another banking career in Houston at the time, focused on retail and commercial lending. Now nearly 30 years later, First Investors Financial Services is a well-established auto finance company […] [Read More]

Auction Edge announced Friday it has attained over 115 customers running its EDGE Simulcast platform powered by Velocicast and brought aboard new senior vice president Julie Warpool to oversee the augmentation of all the company's auction systems. “In partnership with the developers behind Velocicast we committed to crafting an unparalleled user experience for auction user, buyer and seller. […] [Read More]

More workers making more money. That’s the crux of the latest report from the National Automobile Dealers Association Employment and payroll at franchised dealerships continued to rise through the first six months of 2017, according to a new midyear report released by NADA. Officials tabulated that franchised dealerships directly employed 1,134,200 workers through the second quarter […] [Read More]

The team behind CompetitorPro is launching a new product on Monday that aims to help dealers in decision-making, doing so with a localized approach. VINFactor, which makes its official debut at the DrivingSales Executive Summit, is a free tool designed to decode vehicle identification numbers to provide local market context and advice. How does that […] [Read More]