THE three workshops conducted by Dale Pollak, the boss of used car data specialist, vAuto, held recently in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, attracted 500 dealers and used car executives and a cheque for $50,000 to the Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA).

Mr Pollak, the founder of the US-based vAuto – a Cox Automotive company – told the delegates to his workshops that the imperatives of running used-car operations have completely changed compared to what they were just five and 10 years ago and that data was now the key to retaining or growing used-car profits.

His vAuto stocking intelligence company visits all auto classified websites in the US every 10 seconds to monitor pricing and stocking trends of all advertised cars in near-real time in each local market.

The data provides dealers with unprecedented insights into their local market and blows away time-honoured systems from the past of, for example, stocking what sold last month and managing used car stock by age.

All delegates received Mr Pollak’s latest hardcover book, Velocity Overdrive: The Road To Reinvention.

Cox Automotive, which brought Mr Pollak to Australia for the workshops, promised that the $100 attendance fee would be donated to the AADA to assist the association represent dealer’s’ interests.

Workshop delegates told GoAutoNews Premium that Mr Pollak provided them with valuable insights into how the used-car market had been changed by the internet and what new steps they needed to adopt to maximise used car profits.

By John Mellor