When the Car Dealership Guy team starts talking about using local market data to improve dealership results, we’re nodding along vigorously. What’s the deal?
Why Local Data Matters to Dealerships
This Car Dealership Guy Market Pulse newsletter led with “how zip code specific strategies are shaping dealership results”. The gist is that dealerships should be using data from their local market to adjust their inventory sourcing and used car pricing strategies.
The reason: there are wild fluctuations in what’s selling and how it’s priced depending upon what piece of the country you’re in, and not just the state, but your local market area.
This is common sense and probably how 99% of dealerships operate today, but…
What Happens When Your Website Doesn’t Use Local Data?
The hidden dilemma here is that many of the tools sitting on your website, the ones that help people get a trade-in value or a payment estimate, which frequently has a trade associated with it, are not using your local market data.
In fact, you probably have no idea what data they’re using because they don’t share how they arrive at the number (we publish our valuation methodology here!). These are the biggest brand names in the business, but yet they’re teeing up your customers with values and payment quotes that more often than not do not match the reality of your local market.
When your customer gets a number from the most trusted brand that isn’t reality, they still trust the trusted brand, but now they don’t trust you.
TradePending Uses Local Market Data to Value Cars
Yes, we’re tooting our own horn here, because the following is one of the biggest reasons TradePending is different from those big consumer facing brands.
Our valuations are based upon the dealer’s local market, pulling comparable vehicles from as tight a radius as possible from the rooftop.
The end result is trade-in values that reflect reality and starting the conversation on a trade-in from a place of mutual understanding instead of skepticism and mistrust