The March 31st issue of Fortune has an timely article on page 24 about the success of John Zapp, a multi-franchise dealer in Oklahoma City, who shifted the focus of his GM & Chrysler stores from trying to sell more new cars to selling used cars. He outsold the Toyota dealer down the street, uped the net profit per sale, and motiviated his sales team with immediate cash payments. This retailing strategy is working great as Zapp is selling trade-ins off his lot for increased used car profit.
Opportunity for Dealers & Wholesalers: A lot of automobile dealers figured this out back in the 4th quarter of last year. However, wholesale used vehicle prices showed continued softness in February and auction inventories are still high. Any improvement in retail used vehicle market continues to favor franchised dealers. Retail used vehicle sales up by 40K+ units in February and 1.7%, YTD. This shows recession-resistance in the auto channel and a great used car market ahead in 2008 for dealers, auctions, and remarketers-- OEMs, too.--as the economic slowdown continues.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment