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It seems like only yesterday the US automakers, the "Big Three" were on their way to a museum (probably the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit). Then, after much debate, mud slinging, and filibustering, the government bailed out the automakers (except for Henry Ford's company - oddly enough). But today, here are the "Breaking News" headlines on Automotive News;
JULY U.S. AUTO SALES; GM sales rise 6%; Ford up 3%; Honda, Toyota fall
Holy buy-American Batman! Did that read Honda and Toyota fall!!! Honk if you have an "Eat your foreign car" bumper sticker.
Chrysler even posted a 7% gain in July to round out the Big Three.
While I'm having fun with the post, this is really great news for the auto industry and for the future of the American auto workers. (and all us dealer people too).
Consumer confidence is on the rise also with the quality improvements that have been made over the last several years by Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Now there is more reason than ever to consider the Big Three contenders in the market once again.
So read the news, get inspired, buy a new car (or sell some new cars). This is happy news from a red hot summer, after a long-long-long cold winter.
There is an overwhelming number of sites for listing your inventory and more showing up everyday. The problem is you don't have an overwhelming amount of time and money to use them all. So where should you spend?
A few of the big dogs always come to mind (AutoTrader, Cars, eBay, Edmunds) just to name a few, but lets break it down from a dealers point of view. AutoTrader says their #1 and brag that they have 3.5 million listings; Cars makes a lot of those same claims. Let's look at the facts from your customers viewpoint - we'll call them the BUYER. Here's where the Buyers shopped in April 2010; http://tinyurl.com/26q2gdn.
57% eBay Motors, 13% AutoTrader, 5% Cars.com
As a dealer ask yourself this; do you want your cars listed among 3.5 million other cars on a site that buyers visit less frequently or do you want to list your cars on a site with only 50K cars to compete against, and 4X's more buyers?
I talked to a single point domestic dealer last week that confessed he was paying over $15K a month to AT. To stand out he had to buy all the extras, highlighting and placement - you know the drill. He signed up for eBay Motors for $1K, didn't have to buy extras to stand out and got just as many leads. He said the only difference was the leads were stronger because the eBay shoppers were ready to buy, not just researching. He still uses all 3 listings sites, but he's cut out all the extras. Once he has several months of good analytics he's going to re-evaluate.
The other site that's gaining traction with dealers is Craiglist but we haven't seem them hit the Top 10 sites for buyers yet. But we'll keep you posted.
So choose wisely, do the research. Go to the different sites and search for a car, check out how many other cars you're competing against in your zip code. You may find you have less competition on a site you're not even using. Make a change, you could sell more cars! Buyers for used cars overwhelmingly shopped on eBay Motors. Sellers (that's the dealers) overwhelmingly listed on AutoTrader.
I've been reading a lot of articles lately about the lack of good used cars on the market. Some of the obvious culprits are "cash for clunkers" and the overall economy. With the slow economy people are simply just keeping their cars longer. The average turn used to be 3 years, now it's 5 years.
One of the good side effects is that new cars are selling better than expected. Unfortunately those deals are coming with trades that are less than high grossing cars.
Q: So where do you find good used cars?
A: Anywhere you can!
You need to get creative about sourcing. Creative, but smart. There are all kinds of tools and software available to help you stock what sells in your market but don't forget about your own database.
- Utilize matchmaker tools on your website or in your CRM tool
- A customer owned car that's on another customers wish list can be turned into 2 sales with a little effort
- Market "free" inspections to your database - make it a event day at the dealership (hot dogs, music, corn-hole tournament) whatever!
- Have fun things for the family to do while there car is being inspected and your sales staff is showing off new models
- Send out simple marketing that reminds your database that you buy used cars. A lot of people are looking to downsize to one or two car families
- You can take the "hassle" out of selling a used car
- Another great source is eBay Motors or Craigslist. Once you know what you're looking for, cars that sell in your area, hit the Internet and look for deals from FSBO's (for sale by owner). You can pick up some great deals.
Plus, it never hurts to stay in touch with your customer base. If they're not in the market they probably know someone that is...I smell a BIRD DOG check!
Sticking with this weeks backyard BBQ theme here are a few grills we thought would be perfect for our motor-head grill masters; enjoy!
Is that a HEMI???
You did what with your Austin?
And finally...that grills got some muscle
Moral of the story, if you can't part with it - grill with it!
My favorite part of summer has to be the outdoor grilling. We start early in the Spring and push it as long as we can into the Fall, but on a hot summer weekend nothing can beat it.
I remember neighborhood BBQ's when I was a kid too. They seemed to make their way up and down the block, everyone brought a dish, the dads all congregated around the grills with beers in hand. The mom's set up the food and chatted away like they hadn't seen each other in years. Kids still played yard games (remember those? Hide & Seek, Red Rover, Tag) yeah, they don't come on X-Box. It was a great way to spend the weekend.
Someones parents had always just bought a new car (my dad always bought station wagons, but that's a whole other nightmare story). Everyone would go out to the street and look over the car, there would be ohhhs and ahhhs, the inevitable horn honking - and there was always "the story of the deal". I worked with a guy about a year ago, ex-car salesman, who said something I'll never forget because it's so true.
He said; when asked if they got a good deal on their new car, never in the history of "man" has there ever been any other answer than, I got a great
Well summer is upon us again, and families are gathering around the BBQ. Not that much has changed, dads are still drinking beer, moms are still chit chatting and kids are still, well kids are playing video games and skateboarding. There doesn't seem to be the same excitement around a new car showing up in the neighborhood - but maybe that's just because there's not a great story being told.
Make sure every sale your dealership closes has a great story. When you sell a car on eBay Motors to a customer across the country make sure its a great experience. Think of what a great backyard BBQ story that could be...I found it online, great pictures, the dealer called me right away, they met my price, they helped me with finance, they did all the paperwork for out of state, they even shipped it right to my house in perfect condition! Hopefully that story ends with, I got such a great deal I'll never buy from anyone else (which of course, it will).
So I come back from vacation, I've got the usual "back from vacation attitude". You know the one, I'm still in shock from the alarm clock going off. I can't believe I have to wear real shoes, and I don't even want to face my email.
But then, as I'm slogging through (what can only be considered) a mind numbing amount of newsletters; out pops this jewel. The new Internet Marketing Top 10 Charts were posted and tah-dah...eBay Motors was number 1, again!
I eagerly posted it to Twitter, Facebook, my boss (to justify my daily rantings) and suddenly the fog begins to lift and I'm feeling more like my old self! I'm ready to take on the world of Internet Car Sales again (right after lunch).
But before I go (Mexican food today) let me just remind everyone that you don't have to spend a fortune advertising your inventory online, you just have to spend the time. eBay Motors offers you the most shoppers at the lowest listing price. You just need to make the effort.
Write me, I'll help you join team #1.
With 90% of new and used vehicle shoppers looking for the perfect car on the Internet your potential customer base just got a whole lot bigger (or smaller).
Bigger if you decide to sell to everyone that's interested, Smaller if you choose to sell just locally.
I've had many of my dealers tell me they don't even respond to bidders on eBay, or emails from people in another state. THAT'S CRAZY! Ask yourself this; did you display the name and location of your dealership on the listing? Of course you did. So it stands to reason that the customer is willing to buy out-of-state, why aren't you willing to sell out-of-state?
Let's take the mystery and fear out of shipping a vehicle to a customer across the country. Some simple research will tell you exactly what your responsibility is in your state for tax and title, there are also several services that will handle everything for you. Plus most DMS software will calculate taxes for any zip code and know if there is city, county, etc.
There are also several shipping companies that specialize in autos, heck, you can even use FedEx or UPS. And for convenience; the shipping charges can be financed into the car deal (line 3) item. You can even mark it up like sublet and make some money!
To protect yourself from shipping incidents (while rare), take these simple steps, they'll boost your feedback (CSI) ratings too;
- Take pictures of the car being loaded into the shipper and email them to the customer with a message like "here's your car on the way to it's new home".
- make sure the driver sees you take the photos so he knows there is a record of the condition of the vehicle when it left the dealership.
- Leave a Visa gift card in the car with a note to the customer to get the car detailed on you.
If anything happens during shipping the shipper is responsible, but assure the customer you will handle the details of any repairs.
One last thing; make sure you disclose all your "selling out-of-state" requirements, and shipping policies in each listing - build it into your template. Some of eBay Motors top sellers include a map of the North America in their listing with 'dots' for all the places they sell to instill confidence in potential buyers, it works! You could even add a video.
Don't fear the out-of-state buyer, that's your new customer, and they'll tell 2 friends, and they'll tell 2 friends, and so on...
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