How to Set Up a Good Inventory in Your New Dealership

You have made a very important decision and want to open up your own car dealership. The next option that you will want to consider is figuring out at what ratio you want to sell new cars to pre-owned cars. Dealership executives and experts like Howard Wilner agree that even if you intend to open a franchise dealership of an auto manufacturer, you should always include used cars as well as new-factory vehicles in your inventory, as research shows that a good majority of buyers in the current vehicle market consider only buying pre-owned vehicles rather than brand new factory-direct vehicles.

The major challenge however, is that purchasing pre-owned vehicles are an expensive option, especially if you would want your inventory vehicles to be of maximum quality at a price that will be profitable for your dealership as well as satisfactory for your customer. What do most successful dealerships do to locate vehicles that are of maximum quality and reasonably inexpensive listing price? Howard Wilner was happy to provide us with some excellent tips that most dealerships will be able to follow.

Even highly successful pre-owned auto dealerships will admit that they regularly attend dealer-only vehicle auctions where inexpensive vehicles of exceptional quality and reasonably low mileage can be found. Using this approach, you will be able to browse through vehicles that have already been checked to meet dealer-quality requirements, according to Howard Wilner. The biggest benefit of purchasing vehicles from dealer-only auctions is that the vehicles are sold at very inexpensive prices, since they are restricted to selling to licensed dealers. Moreover, you can ensure that you can always have a steady inventory of vehicles in your dealership, which is a very important aspect of maintaining a successful dealership.

Once you have a system of ensuring that you have a steady inventory of vehicles in your dealership, it is highly imperative, according to experienced dealer executives like Howard Wilner, that you locate a mechanic among your dealer staff, or organize a custom service center, so that you will be able to both service vehicles purchased from your store (and open up another avenue of profit), as well as furbish pre-owned vehicles recently added to the inventory. When you improve the pre-existing quality of a car that you purchase for your inventory, you can raise the profit margin for that vehicle quite substantially.

Moreover, Howard Wilner recommends that you set up a standard warranty for every vehicle purchased at your dealership, and offer extended warranty programs as services that can contribute to profit as well. In such circumstances, it would be ideal that you have a reputable mechanic, either among the dealership staff or through a service center that you can establish, custom-built for servicing your dealership.

In addition, although you might have the best dealer inventory in place, Howard Wilner feels that in order to turn leads into sales, you will need a team of enthusiastic and competitive sales consultants who will not rest until they have a thorough understanding of the strengths of each vehicle, and who will be confident in pitching them to the customers.

It is vital, according to Howard Wilner, that all sales consultants receive comprehensive training, both on general sales training, as well as specific training on the vehicle inventory and services offered by the dealership. Nothing aggravates a customer more than having their questions responded with an “I don’t know”, or worse, vague answers that do little to assist the customer or the dealership in any way.

Howard Wilner is one of the executives who will not hesitate to assist any consultant if he believes that it will help the potential customer and transform the interaction into a successful sale. Too often, when customers request to speak to a manager at the dealership directly, most managers end up redirecting the customer to forward any inquiries through the consultant. The reason most customers request to speak to a manager is to quell any doubts, fears, or concerns that they might have regarding the potential sale. Refusing to speak to a customer may seem like a good idea in terms of price negotiations, but will only magnify the customer’s worries about the sale, and in the vast majority of cases will contribute to a lost sale.

These are some of the many methods that you can utilize to ensure that you set up a sizeable and recommendable auto inventory. It is important to remember that the challenge is not locating inexpensive pre-owned vehicles that you will be able to purchase for your inventory, but it is about purchasing inexpensive vehicles which have physical qualities that meet dealership-required standards. Moreover, it is not always about building the inventory but about making sure that the inventory is sold in its entirety. To achieve this measure, the sales consultants would need to put in maximum effort to ensure that potential customers locate and purchase vehicles in the inventory. This will ensure that you generate maximum revenue from the inventory sales.