IN THIS sixth edition of Dealer Talks, the podcast series brought to you by Gumtree Cars, in partnership with GoAutoMedia, we explored some options to source quality used cars.
Dealers are finding it increasingly difficult to source used car stock because there has been an increase in demand for everything from late model quality used cars to older used cars still in good nick and especially for those with longer warranties remaining. So the predicted challenge of sourcing stock to sell is upon us.
We talked to Grahame de Carvalho, head of commercial at Gumtree Cars, to Ben Mills, dealer principal of City Mazda in Adelaide and co-owner of iAppraise, and to Steve Zanlunghi, director of operations Absolute Results – Asia Pacific Region.
Grahame de Carvalho, shared insights that dealers are using Gumtree to source cars from the wide range of vehicles for sale by private sellers on Gumtree and dealers are also using Gumtree to sell cars to private buyers and that this can yield better values for dealers than putting cars out through wholesalers.
Steve Zanlunghi talked about how an intelligent analysis of a dealers owner database can generate the very trade-ins that dealers keenly want for their used car operations.
We heard that dealers are organising sales events specifically inviting people to attend who have the trades the dealership would most like in stock.
Ben Mills told us that a relentless focus on appraising cars translates like clockwork into generating used car stock with very little need to go outside the dealership to source used cars.
We heard that using powerful appraisal management tools to track appraisal KPIs and to revisit missed trade-in opportunities can bring in another $45,000 in gross profit a month.
By John Mellor