Auto Retail News

Here is a riddle for you. The average dealership saw its sales decline by 14% in the third quarter of 2009 and yet its gross profit dropped only 8%.  How is this possible if the largest portion of sales, the new car department, experienced a 25% dec

How you source supplies affects whether you make money As discussed last month, a centralized purchasing function can yield significant benefits to your organization including: Reduced costs and improved profitability Improved control and coordinatio

As many others, I was deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Bob Tasca Sr. this past January at the age of 83. I was shocked when I read Bob was 83 because the ad company I founded, CBC, worked with the Tascas when he was 56 years old. At that time

If you don’t it will be like an orchestra without a conductor Vehicle headlights only illuminate the road ahead for about 200 feet but you can, even with this limited vision, go from Maine to Florida in these incremental steps if you are willing to

Last year we saw things that were previously unimaginable. OEM bankruptcies, franchise terminations, and many more dealers that just went out of business because they couldn’t survive the economic challenges. Automotive financing, both retail and w

Here is a stark but simple fact: for the past year, the marketplace has offered fewer active buyers than needed to sustain the dealer community.   A Darwinian fight for survival proceeded; over the past year an alarming number of dealers went out o

Effective SEO campaigns are more than just keywords and meta tags It’s not news that search engine optimization has been a hot topic in the automotive industry for quite a while. You have probably spent a significant amount of time throughout the l

Creative merchandising of inventory improves sale chances We’re well into the first quarter, but it’s never too late to tweak our annual goals. At the very least we all can use a reminder of the basics that got us to where we are today. Think bac

For many years, a major DMS provider would sell their system on the claim that if they switched to their system, a dealership could reduce office staff by 50%.  The latest claim that’s been going around has been if you get an ASP solution, you can