It's been a while since I've posted anything here on DrivingSales -- it's taken me this long to recover from NADA enough to write anything worth sharing here! And in the meantime, we've moved on to that other big part of Q1 for auto dealers, Tax Season.

For most of us who have to file a tax return, "tax season" means pain and suffering.

But for a lot of consumers, it's the one time of the year when they know they're going to have a big chunk of change to put down on getting into a car -- their tax refund.

And we write about this every year because it's important every year.  Car dealers plan inventory and staffing around this 5th "season" to take advantage of this influx of cash into the car-buying market.

According to the National Retail Federation's 2012 Tax Return Survey results, just released last week, 12.3% of the consumers expecting a refund were planning for a major purchase, such as a car.

The best quote in the release:

"For some, tax season is a way to reward themselves, for others it is the perfect opportunity to get ahead on their bills or other expenses," said Pam Goodfellow, Consumer Insights Director, BIGinsight. "Whatever the decision, many consumers this year are looking forward to taking back some of their hard-earned money from Uncle Sam."

Sounds good to us.

These are exactly the kinds of folks that we see coming through our network of auto finance sites -- people looking for financing to go with that down payment from the IRS.

And we've gotten the jump in website traffic in the past few weeks to show that this is going to be a banner year for auto dealers who know how to take advantage of our auto finance leads. Check out our free Volume Estimator to see what the traffic looks like in your area and how we can help.

In the meantime, we'll just leave you with one question: what is your dealership doing to make hay while the tax season sun shines? 

It's been a while since I've posted anything here on DrivingSales -- it's taken me this long to recover from NADA enough to write anything worth sharing here! And in the meantime, we've moved on to that other big part of Q1 for auto dealers, Tax Season.

For most of us who have to file a tax return, "tax season" means pain and suffering.

But for a lot of consumers, it's the one time of the year when they know they're going to have a big chunk of change to put down on getting into a car -- their tax refund.

And we write about this every year because it's important every year.  Car dealers plan inventory and staffing around this 5th "season" to take advantage of this influx of cash into the car-buying market.

According to the National Retail Federation's 2012 Tax Return Survey results, just released last week, 12.3% of the consumers expecting a refund were planning for a major purchase, such as a car.

The best quote in the release:

"For some, tax season is a way to reward themselves, for others it is the perfect opportunity to get ahead on their bills or other expenses," said Pam Goodfellow, Consumer Insights Director, BIGinsight. "Whatever the decision, many consumers this year are looking forward to taking back some of their hard-earned money from Uncle Sam."

Sounds good to us.

These are exactly the kinds of folks that we see coming through our network of auto finance sites -- people looking for financing to go with that down payment from the IRS.

And we've gotten the jump in website traffic in the past few weeks to show that this is going to be a banner year for auto dealers who know how to take advantage of our auto finance leads. Check out our free Volume Estimator to see what the traffic looks like in your area and how we can help.

In the meantime, we'll just leave you with one question: what is your dealership doing to make hay while the tax season sun shines? 

Auto Dealer Monthly has published the results of their field survey, and it's more evidence that the great automotive subprime numbers we've been reading about in the paper are being seen in the street. We've been seeing it on our side too, with a jump in the number of people applying for car loans through our sites.

The article has a great chart that gives a five-year overview of Special Finance activity for both franchises and independents. You can see the dip for the recession and see how the numbers are recovering, particularly in the grosses.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Over the last three months, compared to the same period in 2010, 55.5 percent of franchise dealers said their subprime credit volume is better or much better, and 30.1 percent said it’s about the same. Among independents, 75 percent said their subprime credit volume is better or much better. This indicates the subprime market is growing and is wide open for those who know how to capitalize on it. (my emphasis)

Straight from the horse's mouth, since it was the dealers themselves who responded to the survey.

Why do I like to see that?

It means that the members of the Carloan.com Dealer Network are going to continue to get the volume of finance leads they're looking for to help them sell more cars. Couple that with the start of tax season, and Q1 2012 looks to be a great time to get involved with special finance.

Not a member of the Network yet? Check out our FREE Volume Estimator to see what we have available in your area. And come see us at NADA 2012 in booth # 968!

Auto Dealer Monthly has published the results of their field survey, and it's more evidence that the great automotive subprime numbers we've been reading about in the paper are being seen in the street. We've been seeing it on our side too, with a jump in the number of people applying for car loans through our sites.

The article has a great chart that gives a five-year overview of Special Finance activity for both franchises and independents. You can see the dip for the recession and see how the numbers are recovering, particularly in the grosses.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Over the last three months, compared to the same period in 2010, 55.5 percent of franchise dealers said their subprime credit volume is better or much better, and 30.1 percent said it’s about the same. Among independents, 75 percent said their subprime credit volume is better or much better. This indicates the subprime market is growing and is wide open for those who know how to capitalize on it. (my emphasis)

Straight from the horse's mouth, since it was the dealers themselves who responded to the survey.

Why do I like to see that?

It means that the members of the Carloan.com Dealer Network are going to continue to get the volume of finance leads they're looking for to help them sell more cars. Couple that with the start of tax season, and Q1 2012 looks to be a great time to get involved with special finance.

Not a member of the Network yet? Check out our FREE Volume Estimator to see what we have available in your area. And come see us at NADA 2012 in booth # 968!

Following our own advice and getting our ducks in a row to prepare for the big NADA show in (gulp!) two weeks.

There is a wealth of breakout sessions to choose from at this year's show, as usual. There are seven different tracks in all, and you can find a great summary/description over on the Dealer Marketing Magazine website here.

Here are some I'm particularly interested in:

1. "Ten Digital Marketing Strategies That Work Now" - Brian Pasch, CEO of PGB Digital Marketing
2. "How to Digitally Engage Car Buyers" - Kim Stonehouse and Peter Leto, Google Inc
3. "The New Science of Used-Vehicle Sales and Stocking" - Dale Pollak, Founder & Chairman of vAuto
4. "Eight Ways Mobile Can Improve Your Bottom Line" - Len Critcher, President & CEO of eCarList
5. "Proven Social Media Strategies of Top Dealers" - Shaun Raines, Natioanl Director - Automotive of DrivingSales.com
6. "Twenty Persuasive Ways to Sell F&I Products" - James Ziegler, President of Ziegler Supersystems, Inc.

And that's just for starters.  What sessions look good to you?

It's always inspiring to see everyone come together for this show every year, and the optimism it brings with it. We're really looking forward to being there in booth #968!

Following our own advice and getting our ducks in a row to prepare for the big NADA show in (gulp!) two weeks.

There is a wealth of breakout sessions to choose from at this year's show, as usual. There are seven different tracks in all, and you can find a great summary/description over on the Dealer Marketing Magazine website here.

Here are some I'm particularly interested in:

1. "Ten Digital Marketing Strategies That Work Now" - Brian Pasch, CEO of PGB Digital Marketing
2. "How to Digitally Engage Car Buyers" - Kim Stonehouse and Peter Leto, Google Inc
3. "The New Science of Used-Vehicle Sales and Stocking" - Dale Pollak, Founder & Chairman of vAuto
4. "Eight Ways Mobile Can Improve Your Bottom Line" - Len Critcher, President & CEO of eCarList
5. "Proven Social Media Strategies of Top Dealers" - Shaun Raines, Natioanl Director - Automotive of DrivingSales.com
6. "Twenty Persuasive Ways to Sell F&I Products" - James Ziegler, President of Ziegler Supersystems, Inc.

And that's just for starters.  What sessions look good to you?

It's always inspiring to see everyone come together for this show every year, and the optimism it brings with it. We're really looking forward to being there in booth #968!

So we've all had a couple of days to adjust to signing "2012" on our checks and can take a little bit of a look back at the end of 2011.

Great news featured by Bloomberg last week with the headline "Dealer's Best December in Five Years Follows U.S. Sale Ads". Consumer confidence is climbing and looks to be about to continue its momentum into Q1. Couple that with the rebound by the Japanese automakers recovering from the tsunami that knocked out production capacity in March, and inventory looks to be on track to meet the demand.

Now it's on to 2012 - if you're looking for a more complete summary of 2011, check out this article from Ricky Beggs at Black Book, featured on Auto Remarketing.

There's are two 2012 predictions in Beggs' analysis that I'd like to highlight here:

“We expect new-car sales levels to continue to climb, hopefully to at least 13.5 million,” he continued. “This creates another possible 700,000 to 800,000 potential trade-ins.

“But with end-of-term lease return volumes to bottom out this year, there will continue to be a tight supply of used vehicles, thus used values will be strong again this year,” Beggs projected.

That means that handling used inventory will continue to be an important part of an effective dealership strategy for a profitable 2012.

And then there's this tidbit:

“The lending part of the industry we feel will be aggressive again in overall approvals of even slightly lower beacon scores, increased advance amounts in relation to actual cash value and longer length of loan terms,” Beggs estimated.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Here at Carloan.com, we've been talking about how "special finance is back" for months now as lenders have been loosening up through Q3 and Q4 of 2011, and it continues to grow as more consumers are coming back into the market and looking for cars to buy.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a great ride in 2012!

So we've all had a couple of days to adjust to signing "2012" on our checks and can take a little bit of a look back at the end of 2011.

Great news featured by Bloomberg last week with the headline "Dealer's Best December in Five Years Follows U.S. Sale Ads". Consumer confidence is climbing and looks to be about to continue its momentum into Q1. Couple that with the rebound by the Japanese automakers recovering from the tsunami that knocked out production capacity in March, and inventory looks to be on track to meet the demand.

Now it's on to 2012 - if you're looking for a more complete summary of 2011, check out this article from Ricky Beggs at Black Book, featured on Auto Remarketing.

There's are two 2012 predictions in Beggs' analysis that I'd like to highlight here:

“We expect new-car sales levels to continue to climb, hopefully to at least 13.5 million,” he continued. “This creates another possible 700,000 to 800,000 potential trade-ins.

“But with end-of-term lease return volumes to bottom out this year, there will continue to be a tight supply of used vehicles, thus used values will be strong again this year,” Beggs projected.

That means that handling used inventory will continue to be an important part of an effective dealership strategy for a profitable 2012.

And then there's this tidbit:

“The lending part of the industry we feel will be aggressive again in overall approvals of even slightly lower beacon scores, increased advance amounts in relation to actual cash value and longer length of loan terms,” Beggs estimated.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Here at Carloan.com, we've been talking about how "special finance is back" for months now as lenders have been loosening up through Q3 and Q4 of 2011, and it continues to grow as more consumers are coming back into the market and looking for cars to buy.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a great ride in 2012!

Although it's a couple of months away, everyone in the industry is talking about it. And when I say talk I mean blogging and tweeting. A Google search of 'NADA convention and expo 2012' resulted in over 300k hits.

On Twitter when you search #NADA2012 that too also resulted in many posts about the event.

A great way to stay in the know is to follow those accounts who are Tweeting about anything related to your industry. An example would be the Digital Dealer conference-  #DD11- that took place this year. Since we did not attend, we still kept up with what was going on through blogs and tweets that attendees were posting. Not only did those posts make us feel as though we were there, but it also gave us the opportunity to interact with attendees, as well as gain more followers.

Keyword: followers! We gained about 40 new followers from #DD11 simply because we participated on a digital level, thus letting others know who we were. This year we plan to do the same with #NADA2012, except we will actually be in attendance allowing us to make personal and online connections.

So make sure you check us out in person @ booth #968, or on Twitter @Carloanco!

Although it's a couple of months away, everyone in the industry is talking about it. And when I say talk I mean blogging and tweeting. A Google search of 'NADA convention and expo 2012' resulted in over 300k hits.

On Twitter when you search #NADA2012 that too also resulted in many posts about the event.

A great way to stay in the know is to follow those accounts who are Tweeting about anything related to your industry. An example would be the Digital Dealer conference-  #DD11- that took place this year. Since we did not attend, we still kept up with what was going on through blogs and tweets that attendees were posting. Not only did those posts make us feel as though we were there, but it also gave us the opportunity to interact with attendees, as well as gain more followers.

Keyword: followers! We gained about 40 new followers from #DD11 simply because we participated on a digital level, thus letting others know who we were. This year we plan to do the same with #NADA2012, except we will actually be in attendance allowing us to make personal and online connections.

So make sure you check us out in person @ booth #968, or on Twitter @Carloanco!