5 Tips to Make Vehicle Acquisition Easier for Your Dealership
3 mins
Finding the right vehicles for your lot is a crucial element to your success. Here are five easy tips to help you keep your inventory fresh and your customers happy.
1. Know Your Customers
“What do my customers want to buy?” That should be the first question on your mind as you start to think about vehicle inventory. Consumer demand is always changing in real time, so staying on top of what your customers are looking for is crucial.
According to a recent study[1], the top three most popular used vehicles in the United States are all pickup trucks, with six SUV models also making up the top 10. That means the “average” consumer likely isn’t shopping for cars — but that can vary widely depending on your region, local preferences and other market conditions.
So you might not want to focus on filling your lot with cars, if that’s not what your buyers are after. Bottom line, know your customers and learn everything you can about their preferences, and then focus on acquiring the vehicles they want.
2. Know Your Wholesale Options
From physical or digital, selling or trading, there are many different ways you can go about finding your inventory. While physical auctions allow you to get up close and personal with a vehicle, they also require a large time commitment, taking you away from your customers. Digital auctions, like OPENLANE, provide you the convenience of buying on your time.
With today’s comprehensive inspections and condition reports, and new technologies like Visual Boost AI™ pinpointing detected damage, wholesaling online has never been easier or more reliable.
3. Do Your Pricing Research
We get it, you’re in business to make a profit. That’s why doing your pricing research and knowing how much a vehicle is worth is so crucial to your success. So how do you know what you should be willing to pay for a specific vehicle? There are a number of resources you can use to help determine a vehicle’s value, most notably industry market guides like Black Book.
To help make things easy for our customers, a vehicle’s Black Book price range is built right into every vehicle listing on OPENLANE, letting you instantly know the range of what a car is worth. Additionally, companies like Autoniq also help save you time when researching a vehicle’s value by providing you with access to several different industry market guides at once.
4. Use Your Buying Tools
There are a number of powerful tools buyers can use to help increase your chances of acquiring a vehicle at auction. For instance, on OPENLANE, features like autobid and max offer enable you to stay engaged in an auction without having to actively monitor for competitor bids, allowing you to multitask worry-free — whether you’re sourcing other inventory, taking care of a retail customer or enjoying some downtime with your family. Similarly, Absolute Sale allows buyers to bid confidently, knowing the seller has fully committed to selling that vehicle to the highest bidder that same day.
5. Build Your Relationships
The automotive industry is a relationship business above all. You should always be thinking about what your reputation is as a buyer, along with the reputation of your seller. Finding a seller with strong inventory and a proven track record of selling can be the key to success in digital retailing.
One way that OPENLANE makes relationship building easier for buyers is by clearly listing the name of the seller for each vehicle. This allows you to know who you are buying from. Utilizing your network in your vehicle acquisition strategy can help put you above your competition.
Get Serious About Vehicle Acquisition
Let OPENLANE help you with your vehicle acquisition strategy.
Register now and start filling your lot with inventory.