AutoHook, powered by Urban Science, announced Monday that it has integrated direct SMS text-message delivery into its incentive redemption process to help dealers reach engaged customers on a faster and more reliable channel than email. The company said this enhancement can significantly improve deliverability rates of test drive offers to online car shoppers. Last year, […] [Read More]

Off-lease used-vehicle supply continues to ramp up — both in Canada and the U.S. — but this increase isn’t being illustrated in any softening of used-vehicle price movement yet, at least not up North. According to Canadian Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index for Canada, this past February marked the highest index level for the […] [Read More]

CarLabs has appointed former Carfax automotive OEM partnerships director Joseph Schumacher to serve as vice president of business development — the provider of artificial intelligence-powered digital assistants for the automotive industry announced Monday. Via its commerce platform, the company allows consumers to interact directly with all of an auto brand's digital assets by applying AI and […] [Read More]

Refunds associated with federal income tax returns remain a crucial potential revenue stream to buy-here, pay-here dealers either as a pathway to deferred down payments or a method customers can use to become current again on their accounts. Well, the Internal Revenue Service issued a warning about a new twist on an old scam involving […] [Read More]

CARPROOF Corp. said Monday it will rebrand as Carfax Canada in October. Both CARPROOF and Carfax are owned by IHS Markit, and this move “further aligns” the two brands “to better serve its consumer and dealer customers by leveraging the globally known Carfax brand,” CARPROOF said in a news release. “We want our customers to […] [Read More]

Cars.com announced Monday that it has brought aboard Sachin Gadhvi to serve as vice president of growth marketing to oversee paid media, customer acquisition, SEO and organic traffic strategy and data strategy. Gadhvi most recently served as chief marketing officer for venture-funded auction marketplace Everything But The House (EBTH), where he significantly contributed to building […] [Read More]

Fraud is very much on the minds of finance companies nowadays. And for good reason, as LexisNexis Risk Solutions put a figure on how much fraud added to finance companies’ operational costs. According to the study titled, “2017 True Cost of Fraud for Financial Services," LexisNexis Risk Solutions found that for every dollar of fraud, financial […] [Read More]

First, I would like to thank Auto Remarketing and Cherokee Media Group for providing me this platform to weigh in on various economic and industry trends. But why choose a “Monty Python” line as the title?  Because it is my hope this column will offer a differing perspective. Not to be a contrarian just for […] [Read More]

At a recent AIADA board meeting, I took over as the AIADA chairman from my friend, Maryland dealer Paul Ritchie. In just a few weeks, I look forward to formally accepting the chairman’s gavel at the NADA convention in Las Vegas during AIADA’s Annual Meeting & Luncheon. As a Volkswagen dealer I am particularly interested […] [Read More]

Millions of vehicles are flowing out of leases into the used-car marketplace, and many will land on dealer lots. Challenging? Yes. But a blessing, too? Perhaps a huge one, if managed right. “The return of a record number of off-lease vehicles will be one of the biggest challenges dealers will face, but it’s also one […] [Read More]