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Independent cardealerships must remain competitive compared to other independent dealers in their area and large national chains with big budgets, a strong brand identity, and access to a nationwide inventory. It can be tough out there, but many independent dealerships are not only competitive, but they thrive.
Today’s customers are increasingly resistant to answering phone calls from businesses, especially cardealerships. To connect more effectively with potential customers, many dealerships are adopting a text-first strategy, which aligns better with modern communication habits.
Dealerships are gaining significant value through predictive insights and automation. By leveraging data from previous purchases, online interactions and even social media, cardealerships not only increase operational efficiency but also create a highly personalized buying experience.
Simplifying the Car-Buying Experience CarGurus has fundamentally changed the way consumers search for and purchase vehicles. Transparency in Pricing and Deals One of the most significant pain points in the traditional car-buying process is price ambiguity. Buyers often feel uncertain about whether they are getting a fair deal.
Honest Abe Auto Sales – a string of four cardealerships in the Indianapolis area – is being forced to pay back nearly half a million dollars to customers it, well, lied to. The dealers , which are operated by Sycamore Companies, were accused of bait-and-switch sales tactics , false advertised prices and preying on… Read more.
How Dennis Dillon Auto Group Built a Winning Private-Party Buying Program Most car dealers think the best used vehicles are found at auctions. We talked with their used car manager, Bryan Bough, about their private-party buying program. They didnt just tweak their existing process; they completely reinvented how they acquire used cars.
DealerAI announced the launch of Multi-Agent Generative System (MAGS), a next-generation AI platform designed to provide cardealerships and auto groups with an advanced, customizable AI solution that enhances online customer interactions, automates key workflows and scales with business needs. ” Now available in the U.S.
The world of cardealerships is a dynamic and ever-evolving industry that operates in tandem with economic cycles. In a down market, cardealerships face unique challenges that test their adaptability and resilience. Being a car dealer in a down market is undoubtedly challenging, but it’s not insurmountable.
Deals held up in the finance department can be resolved promptly by experienced title clerks. Deals held up in the finance department can be resolved promptly by experienced title clerks. Outsourcing allows cardealerships to streamline operations and their employees to focus on what they do best — sales and customer service.
The top cyber threat to your auto dealership is the reasonable assumption that it won’t happen to you. At risk is the vast amount of sensitive customer data cardealerships handle, including financial details, personally identifiable information (PII) and vehicle telematics. Meanwhile, it helps to be aware of your exposures: 1.
The Federal Trade Commission may be excluding cardealerships from its plans to ban junk fees if provisions in a reportedly controversial set of proposed rules targeting dealerships are finalized.
We discussed how the market continues to evolve and push further into a digital retailing-first approach, despite many dealerships simply not being ready for the change. In this article, we’ll explore these gaps and discuss why they are crucial to the success of cardealerships in the digital age.
It seems like there’s almost never a time when a cardealership doesn’t do something wrong. From selling a car that a customer brought in for repair to taking a customer’s money and then making them go through hell to get it back, even simply doing what they’re in business to do can turn into fraud.
Every so often, the sweet kiss of justice comes to kiss scheming dealerships on the cheek. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, but it has happened to the former owner of a high-end cardealership in Southern California, the Daily Bulletin reports.
Of its tire sales, 90% is retail, with the remaining 10% wholesale to area cardealerships. The result is a successful dealership that has grown steadily every year since its founding and one that stands out as a finalist in the 2025 Mr. Tire/Big 3 Tire Top Shop Award. Pictured are Jim (left) and Michael Handel.
This, however, can make your car buying journey more challenging. This guide will walk you through the process of finding the most reliable used car dealers in River City, ensuring you drive away with a great vehicle and peace of mind. They can help you snag the most popular and best-priced used cars your money could buy.
Of its tire sales, 90% is retail, with the remaining 10% wholesale to area cardealerships. The result is a successful dealership that has grown steadily every year since its founding and one that stands out as a finalist in the 2025 Mr. Tire/Big 3 Tire Top Shop Award. Pictured are Jim (left) and Michael Handel.
Among the myriad of industries, cardealerships stand out for their keen adoption of innovative financial practices to sustain profitability. The Cost-Saving Potential For cardealerships, where transactions are typically high-value, the cost savings from adopting these strategies can be substantial.
The Mechanic Doctor - Resources for Amateur and Pro Auto Mechanics Are you in the marketplace for new wheels but navigating the labyrinth of financing options? Enter Buy Here Pay Here dealerships , the underdog heroes of automotive international. The quest can be daunting when you need a unique finance department at a dealership.
Why your dealership website needs a shift As people interact more online, they began to judge the quality of their services and experiences based on their engagement. For cardealerships, this translates to websites that mirror the positive online shopping experience customers have elsewhere.
A woman in Knoxville, Tennessee had to turn to a local news station’s “Help Me” consumer affairs guy after a used cardealership sold her Ford Taurus out from under her after she brought it in for repairs. If that wasn’t bad enough, months later, the car was still registered in her name.
The Federal Trade Commission has announced new regulations, called the Combating Auto Retail Scams Rule , that are meant to stop car dealers from screwing customers with hidden fees and other bait-and-switch pricing tactics. Oh, happy days! Read more.
Car buyers’ trust in dealers is a key indicator of how transparent they perceive the car-buying process — even with access to digital tools to complete key elements of their purchase. Using online soft credit pulls and pre-qualification, car buyers can enter a dealership with a sense of their pricing options.
Auto dealerships are also embracing new AI tools for enhancing customer service and reshaping how they price their vehicles. This serves as a starting point for the ultimate price of the vehicle and can be a negotiating tactic for dealerships.
For cardealerships, this translates to websites that mirror the positive online shopping experience customers have elsewhere. Separate tools for trade-in valuation, test drive scheduling or financing require the buyer to jump through hoops to find the information they need or require repetitive information entry.
Slick and visual new-model-year brochures were a cardealerships best point-of-sale desire-builders for many years. Today, this pattern is packaged into digital vehicle portfolios (DVP), the visual, enticing and descriptive Wish Books grown-ups now use to shop and buy used cars from your dealership. Understandable.
While supply constraints have been a major focus, it’s also important to consider how demand dynamics are influencing the used car market and complicating dealerships’ ability to source inventory effectively. This trend is expected to continue, with private-party sales projected to account for 40% of the used car market by 2025.
Let’s break down key considerations for selecting the best chat tool for your cardealership. A fully managed solution in which a third party covers all online chat or message communications frees up personnel to focus on in-dealership shoppers. Quite simply, selling cars is still a people business.
Independent cardealerships had to navigate a number of trends in 2024, from supply constraints to consumers reacting to new economic pressures. No matter what curveballs are around the corner, there are key strategies used-car dealers should consider to consistently boost profitability.
It’s only a matter of time before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) makes an example of auto dealerships that are out of compliance with the FTC Safeguards Rule. To ensure compliance with the FTC Safeguards Rule, car dealers have several options: 1. Continue with traditional paper filing and storage methods 2.
So, what is the best tech to invest in to revitalize your dealership? Embracing Change In the past, cardealerships were often characterized by a high-energy sales environment dominated by face-to-face interactions. Before I answer that, let’s first discuss where there is room for improvement within the current system.
As it turns out, car dealers seem to know even less than buyers do when it comes to electric vehicles , and they don’t really seem too keen on learning about them. The Washington Post spoke with a number of customers who said dealers tried to redirect them to gas cars or gave them unclear or downright incorrect answers … Read more.
New vehicle dealer inventory once again climbed in June, with 2.96 million vehicles just sitting on lots. That works out to about a 76-day supply, and it’s up from 2.89 million vehicles a month earlier. It’s also a million more vehicles than where it was at the same time last year – 1.95 Read more.
A Honda dealership in Bowie, Maryland is facing civil charges after it allegedly engaged in “unfair or deceptive trade practices at nearly every stage” of new vehicle sales , according to Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. Read more.
A lot of car dealers don’t have much interest in selling EVs ; some are politically opposed to the idea on its face, some just don’t want to make the massive investment their brands are demanding to update their stores to EV readiness and some are just philosophically opposed to learning anything about products and… Read more.
The VinFast VF8 is a bad car , and with a base price of nearly $50,000, you can’t even make the argument that it doesn’t need to be fancy because it’s cheap. Despite that (and all the negative reviews that came from the press launch), VinFast decided to start selling its cars in the U.S. Or at least attempt to sell… Read more.
Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles are spending nearly three months sitting on dealer lots. Data shows that it took Mercedes dealers an average of 82 days to sell the automaker’s battery-powered EQ models , according to Automotive News. Read more.
The reborn Fisker produced just over 10,000 cars in 2023, delivering around 4,700 units of the Ocean crossover to customers across 12 markets worldwide (including some right-hand-drive countries) following the first deliveries in June. Fisker says it is already a revenue-generating company, despite supply chain issues… Read more.
For almost ten years I’ve been sharing dealer stories and car buying advice on Jalopnik. I’ve told you about dealers that don’t want to send you quotes in writing to ones that go wild with the extra charges and add-ons. There are even dealers who thought it was a good idea to essentially kidnap a customer to make a… Read more.
Around 15,000 car dealers across the country have been impacted by the cyberattack on CDK Global , a company that dealers use to handle the financial aspects of the transaction. While most consumers probably don’t have a lot of sympathy for dealers, this cyberattack may make it a lot harder for you to find a deal. Read more.
Fisker officially filed for bankruptcy last month, and despite a “going out of business” sale that saw prices of its Ocean EV slashed by thousands , the automaker still has a few thousand leftovers that didn’t sell. Fisker may have found a buyer for all those EVs and, as TechCrunch reports, it’s willing to let them go… Read more.
As it turns out, the vast majority of Americans think cardealerships are out to rip them off. The new KPA 2024 Dealership Trust Survey shows some fairly extreme gaps between perception and reality when it comes to pricing and financing. Read more.
KPA recently announced the results of its 2024 KPA Dealership Trust Survey conducted by The Harris Poll. The survey reveals that about one-third of Americans have experienced things like deceptive selling, hidden fees or dishonest salespeople at cardealerships. 76% don’t trust cardealerships to be honest about pricing.
Conversicas new AI agents now support dealerships in the U.S., Canada and the UK with real-time data encompassing over 84,000 dealerships and OEM microsites and covering nearly 220 million unique auto VINs. Conversica, Inc. In March 2020, Conversica launched its first GenAI solution, Answers, partnering with Google.
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