A view of the changing retail landscape and our most important new “Metrics” from one of the industry’s leading consultants.
In today’s dealership attribution is a new “key” measurement of our vendor’s success. How does your tool help us as dealers make more profit? How do I know that it is working to my benefit? How does your tool measure up to the competition? All valid concerns as we migrate thru the transition from “Bricks and Mortar” to Virtual selling.
As a 40 year plus veteran of the retail automotive business, there have been more changes in the last five years than in the previous thirty five and I suggest to all those reading this that there will be more in the next five than the previous five!!!
With all of the focus on “attribution” you as a dealer should look at your operation and ask yourself:
“What are the essential attributes for my dealership?”
- Pricing Model: Do you have a focused, market based pricing model? Is it rules based? How often do you review? Do I just price used vehicles that way or do I include new? It will be really hard to compete in tomorrows market without a pricing model that includes market based data!
- Frequency of Pricing Changes: How often do you change prices? Is it done as a reaction or do you use data to back up those decisions? Are those decisions done “emotionally’? Your inventory is a commodity and should be treated as such. Many dealers allow the person who purchased or traded for the vehicle to make pricing changes and that model allows for erosion of the process!!!
- Inventory Health: How healthy is your inventory? Does it suffer from obesity? Is there cancer in those used vehicles? FRESH sells!! Excess inventory (obesity) needs to be dealt with quickly! The marketplace is unforgiving on inventory that is not healthy, so make sure yours has all the vital signs that point to profit: Quick turn, priced to market, reconditioning not over done, and inventory distribution that matches the marketplace.
- Management: Are your rules based or reactive? What are the guiding principles of your management staff? If you asked each of your managers to write down the three most important rules of operating your dealership- would the answers match? This is the number one thing to focus on for attribution!!! Your managers will determine the success of your operation, but it is our obligation and responsibility as dealers to set the stage for success. Get a clear path of the rules for operation (not from an employee handbook) the actual rules for success of inventory and dealership sales management metrics and make sure that you protect those processes!!
- Website: Is yours a browsing tool or is it a sales tool? Is it custom or cookie cutter? Tomorrow’s dealership attribution can be easily determined by your virtual presence. Do you have the necessary tools on your website for a customer to actually navigate the sale on line? Do you evangelize your USP? Unique selling proposition. How does your call to action engage the customer? How many times does a customer have to STOP and fill out a form to get information? All these questions will have to be answered to eliminate “disconnection” from your virtual strategy and allow customers to have COMPLETE transparency and control from your website.
If your company would like more information about how these attributes can be improved in your operation, we are one of the leading consulting firms in the automotive industry. Please contact us at:
Email: autoprofitllc@gmail.com
Visit:www.autoprofitllc.com
Text or call: 239-209-7530
