Best Practices for Marketing Your Vehicles on OPENLANE
3 mins
Understanding the difference between selling and marketing, and how they work together, is essential for dealers to be successful on OPENLANE.
Selling is about the daily work that goes into short-term wins like closing deals and hitting your quotas. Marketing is about the factors that contribute to your long-term success, like the experience you deliver to customers. It’s how you establish your brand as a reliable and trusted seller on OPENLANE and it’s what will keep buyers coming back to your listings. Let’s dive in.
Attract More Bidders with Multiple Sales Formats
You know the importance of getting eyes on your inventory, and the more views your listings attract the better chance you have to make sales. But, are you limiting your listings’ potential by using only one sales format?
OPENLANE has multiple sale types and unique add-on features that appeal to different kinds of customers’ buying habits. Let’s look at three examples:
- Auction is the sales format that most traditional buyers will be used to. Our bi-weekly, scheduled auctions run on Mondays and Thursday from 2-4pm CT. Buyers can review a run list and preview all upcoming cars, allowing customers to do their research.
- Marketplace has a similar bidding process as Auctions, but comes without time limits. Users can view, make bids on and win cars anytime and anywhere, 24/7 — allowing for lots of flexibility.
- Absolute Sale is an optional feature on the Marketplace that appeals to buyers who prefer to skip the negotiation process. When you launch Absolute Sale, you’re committing to sell the listing to the highest bidder at the end of the day.
Use the OPENLANE App
Communication is key to your success on OPENLANE. The more you engage with bidders and stay connected to your deals, the more return buyers will value you as a trusted seller.
To make communication with buyers easier, we have the OPENLANE App, where you can manage all your listings and set customized notifications. The app has all the functionality of the web, making it the easiest way to sell cars, even when you’re on the go. Search “OPENLANE” on the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today.
Set Realistic Pricing Expectations
Your vehicle’s pricing communicates a lot about your brand, and it’s often the first thing that buyers will see, so setting customer expectations is important.
Setting a realistic floor price that’s in-line with market value is a good place to start. To help make this process easier, all listings on OPENLANE are integrated with Black Book® pricing guidance that provides an estimated range of what the vehicle is worth. autoniq® can also help by combining all your pricing and market guide subscriptions in one convenient app.
Build a Strong Reputation
As a seller on OPENLANE, your habits and actions help build your customer’s loyalty.
One path to a strong reputation is with OPENLANE’s Elite Dealer Program, a performance-based program designed with your reputation in mind. Elite Dealers earn a special badge that communicates to buyers that you’re motivated to close deals quickly.
The number of vehicles you sell each month, along with your conversion rate, determines your seller status. You can check these metrics on the Seller Stats page at any time. Simply put, the more you sell, and the better your conversion rate, the more that buyers will view your reputation as one they can rely on.
OPENLANE is Your Roadmap to Long-Term Seller Success
Marketing vehicles on OPENLANE is about more than short-term sales—it’s about the long-term impact of your actions, standards and habits. Using multiple sales formats, prioritizing communication, setting proper pricing expectations and building your reputation by providing great service will help you sell with success on OPENLANE.
Ready for wholesale on easy mode? Sign up for OPENLANE today!