Used or Certified? More often than not that seems to be the choice car buyers are making during this unsteady sales year. Consider: Edmunds expects new vehicle sales to be down around 20% in September compared to August – and about 10% below September 2018. On top of that, used cars are popular, but demand isn’t spectacular. ALG is forecasting a September increase of just 0.1%, compared to August. 

CPO is different, this year. Cox Automotive and others are predicting increases of around 10% or more, month-to-month. So far, CPO cars are expected to set another record in 2019 – with almost 2 million units sold through the end of August. 

And that spells opportunity for auto dealerships.  

The challenge is that most CPO programs are limited by brand and mileage. Most dealers still have plenty of good quality used vehicles on their lots that are both off-brand and/or with mileage/age that falls outside OEM CPO requirements. Finding a way to bridge that gulf and leverage consumer demand for certification programs was something that the sales pros at Reed-Lallier Chevrolet were looking to accomplish – so they called us. 

We’re proud to have been able to help them increase YOY used vehicle sales 30% after implementing SureSale Certified. So, I thought I would share the positive results and a link to our case study. 

General Manager Cory Lallier is the one who saw the trend and knew they needed to innovate – even though they already had a 1:1 new-to-used sales ratio. He took a look at their sales trends, inventory patterns and studied what consumers were really interested in – then found a way to adapt to the market, create faster turns, and ultimately deliver more quality used vehicles with the peace of mind of a certification program. Our SureSale Certified program fit their market and helped them stay a step ahead of consumer demand. 

After implementing SureSale Certified, the YOY used vehicle sales increase of 30% was nearly three times greater than the average in the local market.  In fact, SureSale contributed to an increase of over 60% in used car sales in just the first month - significantly higher than the YOY average for the top 25 dealerships in the DMA and far greater than the overall used vehicle market in that area. SureSale vehicles also had a faster turn rate 10% higher than non-SureSale vehicles.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out the Case Study here. It’s a good story about what one dealer did to keep sales running at a high level. 

Learn more about SureSale Certified here.