Apparently, the Fourth of July is not just for fireworks, baseball and hot-dog-eating contests. These days, it’s seen as a “car-shopping holiday” — and one with a big online focus. According to a Dealer.com analysis of dealership website activity, Web visits per dealership during the Fourth of July weekend earlier this month were 73 higher […] [Read More]

Along with some specifics as to what dealers wanted coming down the lanes, this week’s Black Book Market Insights report showed depreciation across the board for all car and truck segments. Editors put particular emphasis on trucks and small crossovers. They indicated vehicles in these segments faced the heaviest price drops this past week with […] [Read More]

The latest Beige Book — the Federal Reserve’s ongoing effort to gather anecdotal information on current economic conditions through reports from bank and branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts and other sources — showed pockets of dealership turbulence in several of the 12 districts. While contacts in Cleveland, Kansas City […] [Read More]

Automotive Finance Corp. (AFC), a business unit of KAR Auction Services, named two vice presidents this week. AFC highlighted Tiff Arcella joined the company as vice president of sales and Devra Callaghan was promoted to vice president of marketing and business development. A sales leader and strategic management expert, Arcella joins AFC with nearly 30 […] [Read More]

Vendor Transparency Solutions (VTS) — a compliance monitoring and continuing education training provider for the recovery and finance industries — recently released its new, expanded library. In an effort to better prepare VTS-subscribed companies with the various compliance-related requests from clients, subscribers now have access to 23 individual policy templates. This service is provided by […] [Read More]

MetroGistics has hired Terry Mollica as director of business development. His duties will include helping to expand MetroGistics’ presence to its growing customer base, with a focus on the remarketing segment. Mollica has more than 18 years of sales and marketing experience, including the automotive, captive finance remarketing and consumer industries. Prior to joining MetroGistics, he was the […] [Read More]

Like their contemporaries at the National Automobile Dealers Association, leaders from the American International Automobile Dealers Association are urging dealer principals to reach out to members of Congress as they adjourn for their summer recess. AIADA insisted the best way to forge a meaningful relationship with elected officials is through its Dealer Visit Program. “We […] [Read More]

The Zika virus, Hillary Clinton’s emails, global warming and the presidential election. Each of these current events/issues has a significantly higher rate of general public awareness than does the Takata recall, according to Kelley Blue Book. A study from KBB parent company Cox Automotive found the public had lower awareness of the Takata recall (52 […] [Read More]

Santander Consumer USA Holdings made its fourth significant executive leadership change in the past 12 months as Blythe Masters resigned from the finance company’s board of directors on Tuesday to take on a new role with Banco Santander. While Masters departed her leadership role with SCUSA after about a year, the finance company elevated William […] [Read More]

Don’t underestimate the power of Mickey Mouse. David Vignes would know. Vignes — the executive vice president of enterprise optimization at KAR Auction Services — spent more than 15 years with The Walt Disney Co. “You look at Mickey in the park and you see people jumping on him, because if you can get a […] [Read More]