Stocking inventory can be a tricky, daunting task, even for veteran car dealers. To make matters worse, the current inventory shortage only adds challenge to the process. Keep reading to discover how the Dealerslink Simplified Stocking Report is helping dealers across the nation fill their inventory needs.

Whether we like it or not, inventory is currently the most restricted we’ve seen it in years, and stocking a lot has become an even more challenging task. Traditionally, determining your inventory needs has been a time-consuming process, involving a large amount of analysis, research, and a bit of guesswork. But thanks to our simplified stocking report, you can save you and your team the headaches and quickly find solutions to any of your stocking difficulties.

Different from a typical stocking report, ours does not break inventory down by price band. Instead, it sorts vehicles by type, ranging from small cars and minivans to half-ton SUVs and one-ton pick-ups. Rather than telling you the value of cars that you need, the DealersLink simplified stocking report tells you what your customers need, allowing you to better cater to your clients and ultimately sell more vehicles.

The DealersLink Simplified Stocking Report provides you with more than just streamlined analysis, however. It yields effective solutions in real-time, analyzing both recent and seasonal sales data trends to tell you how many cars you need to purchase or sell, and how they have performed statistically. Once you know which areas need to be stocked, our platform lets you “drill down” within your inventory, allowing you to see specifically which car models perform best and should be stocked, and which ones do not.

“The simplified stocking report allows store managers, who are responsible for sourcing vehicles, a quick way to identify vehicles by class where the store is low or high on inventory,” describes DealersLink performance manager Matt Childers. “By keeping the report simple, it helps dealers to make quick, informed decisions instead of having to dive through multiple layers of data analytics.  In doing so, dealers can be more efficient and effective when trying to fill inventory holes on the lot.”

Once you know what you need, the DealersLink platform makes it easy for you to find it. Our stocking report is directly integrated with our DealersLink Marketplace, as well as our AuctionLink platform, allowing you to go directly from one to the other, and easily source your next vehicles. With unmatched ease of navigation and a variety of tangible, digestible data points, your lots will be perfectly stocked in no time.

So now that your team has all this extra time, it’s time to decide what you’re going to do with it… visit us online at dealerslink.com to get started.

Broomfield, CO – After years of research and development, automotive software provider DealersLink has just revealed its latest brainchild: AuctionLink 2.0. This searchable auction database combines intel from 92 Manheim auctions and over 200 independent auctions, allowing dealers to gain a combined, in-depth view of the auction market.

Originally developed in 2015, AuctionLink served as a digital auction house within the DealersLink platform where dealers could list and bid on vehicles that were listed by AuctionLink users. AuctionLink 2.0 builds off this feature, but adds an enhanced search tool, allowing users to view and navigate to vehicle listings anywhere in the country. Aimed at promoting efficiency and ease of navigation, AuctionLink 2.0 offers unmatched market visibility for auction listings across the nation.

“The support and innovation with AuctionLink 2.0 are unmatched. It’s much simpler and easier to use than any other product I’ve dealt with. The willingness to adapt to feedback from the support team is something I was never able to get with StockWave and vAuto. If I ever open my own store, DealersLink will be the first place I call.

– Scott Allen, General Sales Manager of Roger Dabbs Chevrolet

Robust in nature, the newest rendition of the AuctionLink platform provides a variety of filters and data points to help dealers navigate to the exact market segment that they’re looking for, offering up to 5 days of advanced market data. Basic search figures include vehicle make, model, and year, with users also having the ability to filter vehicles by distance and zip code.

For an in-depth analysis, each vehicle is given a grade within the AuctionLink 2.0 system, based on a rating from the National Auto Auction Association (NAAA). Ranging from 1-5, each grade reflects on a vehicle’s condition and value, corresponding with a color-coded “traffic light” rating, a red, yellow, and green circle next to each score. With a variety of data points and evaluation methods, AuctionLink 2.0 allows dealers to easily find exactly what they’re looking for.

“AuctionLink 2.0 has been a five-year dream in the making, to build a global auction search for all auctions that complements our 15-year-old dealer-to-dealer marketplace,” remarks DealersLink CEO Mike Goicoechea. “With over 150,000 used vehicles, AuctionLink 2.0 now gives dealers the most complete model of used inventory available for sale on dealer lots or in-lane. We are excited to give DealersLink members a competitive advantage in this era of inventory shortages!”

To learn more about AuctionLink 2.0 and the DealersLink platform, visit us online at dealerslink.com.

About DealersLink

Founded in the late ‘90s by a team of automotive industry experts, DealersLink has grown to the fastest-growing inventory management company in the nation. The brand is the only true market-data-driven new and used auto dealership management software solution, coupled with a billion dollar’s worth of on-demand, dealer-direct inventory. Using the state-of-the-art DealersLink software, dealers can source, appraise, price, market, manage and exit inventory with the industry’s most powerful all-in-one solution. Constantly innovating and updating their software, DealersLink is helping thousands of car dealers nationwide take their dealerships into the digital era.

Whether we like it or not, the events of 2020 have changed the course of the future for us all. The automotive industry is no exception, especially within the sector of used vehicles. However, what many people don’t know is that the year’s events have created the “perfect storm” for used car sales, giving dealers unforeseen competition in a never-before-seen climate.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first started just over a year ago, panicked car dealers dumped their inventories in an all-out frenzy. In fact, here at DealersLink, we had the most units ever activated in our marketplace during May 2020. But, as the economy began to reopen during summer 2020, the industry began seeing unprecedented demand for used vehicles, rapidly reducing inventory supply across the country. Now, as we near the end of the first quarter of 2021, used inventory levels remain at all-time lows.

With high consumer demand and extremely low inventories, dealers need any type of competitive advantage they can get in these cutthroat conditions. That’s where DealersLink comes in. With our fully immersive used car sales management software, our dealers are able to stock inventory, trade cars, and compare retail market data like never before.

Acquiring inventory from trades

In the words of our own Vice President of Sales, Travis Wise, “With a shortage of cars, stimulus money, and tax return season, it’s creating a perfect storm for used car sales. Everybody wants to know that it’s going to get better. Well, it really isn’t right now. The only thing that you can focus on and do a good job on is evaluating a trade.”

Trade-ins are a great way for dealers to gain inventory in this climate. However, there are a variety of factors that dealers need to keep in mind. For starters, when appraising vehicles, it’s important to be transparent with the customer. A dealer needs to make sure that they are doing the best vehicle evaluation possible and make sure they’re getting the car at the best possible price at the point of trade. While dealers know that this is often easier said than done, the DealersLink FastBook platform can help them tremendously simplify the process. We are quite literally the masters of evaluating a trade. Using FastBook, DealersLink scans over 50,000 online dealership sites daily to provide the most accurate true-market retail data with unmatched depth. In a matter of minutes, a dealer can know if they’re pricing a trade-in correctly and how much they will make on a deal.

Keep Buying, Selling, and Trading

Furthermore, dealers need to be continuously making vehicle transactions, something made simple with the DealersLink Marketplace and our Trading Desk feature. Like the stock market, it’s important for dealers to actively buy, sell, and trade cars, especially if they have interested customers.

“A vehicle is worth the most when somebody wants to buy it,” describes Travis. “If another dealer wants to buy a car, then you need to consider that transaction. Don’t just hold onto it, because if nobody’s willing to buy it, it’s a wheel chock.”

Right now, dealers need to move high-dollar and old-aged units while the money is still strong.

To learn more about the DealersLink platform and the current state of the used car market, visit our website.

Broomfield, CO – After a soft release this past week, automotive software leader DealersLink has added a new set of trade evaluation features to its FastBook platform. These intuitive new features are aimed at giving dealers a data-driven approach that justifies trade-in vehicle values while increasing transparency with customers.

In line with the DealersLink modernized, data-driven approach to car sales, these new trade evaluation tools can help dealers more accurately and efficiently appraise a vehicle for a customer. With a variety of built-in industry and retail market statistics as well as car history information, the system promotes increased transparency and trust during the customer trade valuation process.

Built into the FastBook appraisal platform, these new features use several true-market data points to justify a more accurate trade-in offer that dealers can be confident in presenting to their customers.

In the words of DealersLink Founder and VP of Development Mike Goicoechea, “We are excited to deliver another industry first. These new trade evaluation features culminate 10 years of analytics progression.  They allow desk managers to identify vehicle characteristics that lower the value of the trade and then communicate them to the customer. There is no process more critical to dealership profitability than trade offer justification. This has the potential to increase dealership profitability by hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Once a dealer enters this information into the appraisal system, it creates a custom trade-in appraisal for the customer, breaking down the offer and showing the comparison based on other book values. A secondary page is also provided, showing vehicle history, a vehicle inspection report, and market analysis for their trade-in vehicle. With merely the click of a button, a dealer can present an accurate, fully justified, data-backed trade-in appraisal for a customer, valuating their vehicle with full transparency.

“This new feature allows dealers to be more confident in their appraisal price while providing unmatched transparency for the customer. It’s a modern data-driven approach to justifying trade-in values,” describes DealersLink Services Director, Devon Peterson.

For more information visit: DealersLink.com

About DealersLink

DealersLink® provides industry-leading evaluation, pricing, inventory management, syndication, and analytics. It has been eliminating wholesale transaction fees for 15 years with over $1 billion in used inventory available to dealer members 24/7. Members use the marketplace daily to stock their lots with clean reconditioned units, locate hard-to-find vehicles for their customers, sell inventory without incurring wholesale losses.

DealersLink Contact:
Taylor Hollingsworth
sales@dealerslink.com
(844) 340-2522