My last post talked about how dealers can embrace upfront pricing as a way to cut costs across the board, to survive these tough times. This time I’ll address the other side of that coin: increasing sales volume. 
As any dealer can attest, it is impossible to “floor” or display every car or truck in inventory. What’s most critical is increasing sales velocity and selling more vehicles more quickly. Yet it is often just as impossible to fulfill every buyer’s ideal choice of car from available inventory. This translates into inventory that fails to turn over. What’s  more, cars that aren’t being floored are depreciating by the day and must be financed—resulting in additional “carry costs” for the dealer.
 
Dealers need to have a sufficient pool of in-market customers to whom they can quickly sell cars, so those cars are not depreciating on their lots.
 
This is done via access to volume...

Times are tough for dealers.
 

According to Automotive News, analysts expect that total U.S. sales this year “could be as low as 13 million cars and trucks, a precipitous downturn from last year's 16 million.”  And next year isn’t expected to be any better. 
To add insult to injury, another Automotive News article reports that the credit crunch is making lenders reluctant to finance dealerships' vehicle inventories, and the National Automobile Dealers Association projects that as many as 700 dealerships could close this year. 

 
It’s never been more important to cut costs and streamline operations. 
 
But controlling dealership costs like marketing, commissions, inventory maintenance and G&A overhead isn’t a matter of scrimping and saving – nickels and dimes won’t fill the treasury.  Instead, it begins with a fundamental change in mindset—one that acknowledges that staying ...