Freezing cold, damp winter evenings attending car auctions in Chester, England will always hold a special place in my heart. The smell of meat pies, coffee, hot chocolate, and way too much Benson and Hedges tobacco, remains sealed in the deep fibers of my thick warm overcoat. 

The memory that holds an unwelcome place in my heart is fumbling through my 2-inch thick black-book, frantically looking for the value of a car with feeze bit fingers. 

No advanced notice of sale giving me time to prep. No mileage adjustment built into my paper black-book. No condition report. No market data. Just my gut and a dumb youthful appetite for success. How on earth did I ever make money? 

This leads me to think, how does anyone in the competitive USA make money today without these tools? More so, how do they compete with dealers that do use them?

Here are the top 3 reasons I wish we had the technology we have today when I was buying cars in 1999;

1- The ability to know which cars I should buy. Today I would have the luxury of knowing how long it will take me to sell a vehicle I am considering buying.

If my No1 focus is the quick profitable turnover of my inventory, which it better be; I'd better start by buying the right vehicles. I need to buy inventory that I know will sell quickly. Appraisal tools like Carketa's tell me how long it will take to sell the vehicle I'm considering buying.

2- The ability to know how many vehicles are for sale in my defined relevant market and how many have sold.

Do I want to buy vehicles to sell in my market already saturated with the same make and model? Well, yes, if the demand is sufficient to ensure I can sell that car quickly. Or, no, if supply and demand are out of whack. This tool makes me look like a frikken PHD.... I wish.

3- The ability to know all of the market's comparable pricing including, current and sold prices.

Selling quickly is great but I still need to make a good profit!! How do I know what I should pay for a specific vehicle? How do I know what I should sell it for so that the most popular search on add platforms (lowest price) positions me where I want to rank?

There are many reasons I love technology. But nothing gets my attention more than the technology that helps me easily dial in the most important things in my life, add huge value and make it ridiculously lightning fast. 

The fact that these tools are now so affordable blows me away that every dealer doesn't use them. What a difference it would have made to my life in 1999. This would have truly tipped the scales.

Please get out of the 90's; don't be left behind and take a look at the options out there. The best one for me of course is Carketa's. How it uniquely works within the recon tool and helps to stay on top of price changes is fantastic!!

OK, so I'm biased! You would be also.... Just take a look.

Carketa Inc - Inventory Lifecycle management Tools