A Pivotal Time for Dealers and Used Vehicles

It’s a pivotal time for dealers retailing used cars as they head into the final quarter of 2022. Why pivotal? Well, there’s been a marked shift in consumer and dealer sentiment about where the...

Doing a Larger Share of Business in the Way Today’s Customer’s Prefer

Why It’s Time To Tighten Up and Be Ready in Used Vehicles

Two things occurred in the past week that prompt this call for dealers to be ready for a rougher run in used vehicles for the remainder of the year than many, including me, have expected. The...

“CPR” to Offset Declining CPO Profits, Sales for Dealers

I’m seeing more fault lines around certified pre-owned (CPO) sales that, over the years, have become the backbone of used vehicle departments for many franchise dealers. The fault lines aren’t...

ProfitTime GPS in Practice: From Skeptical to Sold

When Mike Cirona, general manager of Scott Robinson Honda in Torrance, CA, initially heard about ProfitTime GPS, he didn’t think his store’s used vehicle department would benefit from it. “I...

A Time to Rethink How You Manage Inventory Age

Three market conditions have converged to cause dealers and used vehicle managers to return to inventory age management policies that call for immediate wholesaling of vehicles that reach 45 or 60...

Beware the Pitfalls of a “New Car Masquerade” in Used Vehicles

In the past few weeks, I’ve come to understand what I’d call a “new car masquerade” in used vehicle departments across the country. Perhaps the circumstances are familiar at your store: The new...

A Primer on Used Vehicle Price Sensitivity

As the used vehicle market returns to more normal conditions, I feel compelled to reiterate a perspective on retail price sensitivity that seems to have been lost over the course of the past two...

More Eyes on Dealers’ New Vehicle Mark-Ups

A couple months ago, an associate asked if I’d heard or seen any chatter among dealers about an apparently crowd-sourced site (www.markups.org) that listed new vehicle markups and the dealers who...

It’s a “Whole Truth” Tuesday!

I thought I’d put out a quick post to highlight that, after production and supply chain delays, my latest book, Whole Truth: A Fresh Money-Making Method to Wholesale, the Most Misunderstood Side...

A Rosier View of A Recession, Plus a Moment of Used Vehicle Opportunity

If you follow the news and related commentary on social media, you may well be thinking that the United States is heading toward a recession, if we’re not already in the initial stages of one....

A Mid-Year Gut-Check on Used Vehicle Market Conditions

As we close in on the halfway point of 2022, I think most dealers would agree with the following statement: While used vehicle sales and profits remain solid, they are nothing like they were at...