GM, Cobalt and LMAs

I think this is a good thing for GM dealers.

Now you no longer have to make a decision based on fear of losing the GM link. You take the GM/Cobalt site and get a great creative site that brands your store and actually generates leads.

I have had a few dealers ask me about the url for the Cobalt site vs. the url for the creative site.

The url that youhave had the longest and have already promoted should be used for the creative site. Reserve another url for the Cobalt site.

Since you have built and established the first url, that's the one you should use for the site that will ultimately create the most sales opportunities.

So, congratulations GM dealers, now you get your cake and can eat it too.

Online Inventory Pricing

Ok, so your inventory is easy to find, you have multiple pictures and you’ve a short story about the car at the beginning of the vehicle description. Let’s take a look a pricing.

Most of us will take the path of least resistance. That is to simply mark-up the car a fixed amount over what we have in it. It is easy to do. But what happens when your used car manager got a great buy on a car.

It takes a little effort but you can watch your gross go up if you take some time to review the market. Many of today programs will keep up to date pricing info on file. Programs such as Inventory On-Line, V-Auto and KarPower will keep updated NADA, Black Book and KBB prices on each unit. The rub here is that you have to make sure that your model, trim level and options have been properly input.

You can also review online sites like Cars.com and AutoTrader to see what other similar models are listed for. I also like to periodically check Kelley Blue Books values as well.

By monitoring the car’s current market values you can accomplish two things. First avoid over pricing units that you’re too high in by adding a flat amount. So mistakes can be retailed faster. Second, you can hold gross on those units you’re in right.

Like I said it takes a little time and effort. But at a time when gross is so important it’s worth it.

Let me know what you think.

Essential elements of the dealership website

This week we’ll look at the dealership website and what makes it effective. Today we’ll look at inventory:

Obviously the reason we have dealership websites is to sell cars. So it only makes sense that we make it easy to find them. Visitors to your site should be able to easily find your inventory within no more than 3 clicks. By find I mean actually looking at a specific unit. Today there are tools like “home page inventory” and “home page inventory search” available that make it possible to find your cars right off the home page. We even offer a new tool called “Zero Click Inventory.”

Once a visitor finds your inventory you need to market the vehicle. Multiple photos are a must. The photos need to be of good quality and really allow the customer to get to know the car well enough to want to buy it or at least add it to their short list.

Here’s the thing that over 90% of all us do. We let our inventory software generate the vehicle description. I am guilty of this myself. Rather than the usual generic junk that tells the customer that the car has Driver Air Bag, Passenger Air Bag, Passenger Air Bag On/Off Switch, A/C, AM/FM Stereo, CD Player, 4-Wheel ABS, Front Disc/Rear Drum Brakes, Cruise Control… why not tell a story?

It does not have to be long, just a tell them about the car:

Our used car manager ran across this car and knew it belonged in our inventory. Low miles and all the options everybody wants. And Phantom Gray is one of the most popular colors available. It has a clean CarFax report and we’ve put through our inspection and made all necessary repairs.

or

A local family needed more room and decided to get a minivan. This Camry has low miles and all the most popular options. Plus it’s Phantom Gray one of the most popular colors available. The CarFax report is clean and it’s been through our 120 point inspection. We’ve already made all necessary repairs and it’s ready to drive home.

A short story about the car will make your units stand out. You could even make that part of the stock in process on trades. Who knows the trade as well as the salesperson that just took it in?

Tomorrow we’ll look at competitive pricing. As always please feel free to comment or if you want contact me.

The GM link to the dealership website

Why does GM put it’s dealers in the situation to choose between settling for a blasé website in order to get the coveted link from GM sites?

At time when GM really needs to get it’s sales going it seems that they would want their dealers to have appealing sites that actually get customers to submit requests on a dealer’s inventory.

Fortunately I think more customers are actually hitting dealership sites before buying than the manufacturers sites, so the “link” from GM is less important that it used to be.

I’d like to hear from GM dealers to see what you guys think about the link from your GM site.