NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK, NY – May 17, 2016: Clever new reusable dry erase-type hang tags exclusively from Wheel’s Automotive Dealer Supplies, Inc. help dealers merchandise inventory and save them money by replacing wasteful paper tags.   

Dealers will reuse these durable hard plastic tags with built-in mirror hanger repeatedly. Innovative and ecofriendly, these unique dry erase hang tags exclusively from Wheel’s eliminate the costly need to waste paper tags having old data or misprints.

With Wheel’s exclusive dry-erase hang tags you simply wipe clean any prior message and write new details using dry erase or wet erasable markers.  

A dealer selling 1,000 new and used vehicles a year will enjoy an ROI of $600 in the second year of tag use, replacing disposable paper tags. 

“Erasable, reusable hang tags is just the kind of money-saving inventory merchandising idea dealers have come to expect from Wheel’s Automotive Dealer Supplies,” said Richard Ashworth, president. Wheel’s is North America’s most renowned experts in innovative marketing products for automotive retailers.

• This unique, one-of-a-kind dry erase, reusable hang tag features a highly visible area dealership branding, For Sale notices, or other dealer-customized copy.
• The area for writing vehicle details is bright, substantial, and clearly visible even through tint.
• Tags are available in multiple colors. Dimensions can be customized to any size and scale.  Copy is easily customized to highlight the topic on which the dealer wants the shopper to focus.
• There is no minimum tag order.

“We are always listening to dealers and looking for practical new ways to help dealers sell cars and save money,” Ashworth said. “These new dry erase useable hang tags will not curl at edges or fade easily, so they always look new and fresh to shoppers.”

To order Wheel’s proprietary dry erase reusable hang tags that save money to merchandise inventory, call Renee at 1-800-465-8831, Ext. 105. For more innovative and cost-saving lot merchandising and dealership supplies, visit wheelsauto.com.

Reconditioning workflow evangelists such as Dennis McGinn, founder, and CEO of Rapid Recon, says GMs who create a Time-to-Market workflow culture among recon, service and used cars can help dealers: 

• Drive down recon costs – up to a quarter-million-dollars or more a year
• Get vehicles frontline ready in four to five days – not 10 to 12!
• Increase inventory turns 2.5 times for every five days shaved in recon 

“The message from this year’s NADA was ‘be prepared.’ Dealers recognize that leaner times ahead will require other parts of their business to pick up any slack. Recon is an ideal hidden treasury,” McGinn said. “Getting a dealership to this level of recon efficiency and profitability is a GM-level responsibility.” 

Here's more: 

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“If the general manager isn’t involved in one of the highest profiting departments in the store, you might have the wrong GM,” Tom Dunn, General Manager for the Fred Martin Superstore, Barberton, Ohio, told me. 

“If you don’t care about improving reconditioning, why should your staff?” says Edward Hyde, dealer principal of the Legacy Auto Network, London, Kentucky. 

Dealers who successfully establish this culture start by replacing outdated and largely ineffective reconditioning tracking methods such as whiteboards, spreadsheets and sticky notes with automation. They assign a management-level champion to manage its daily oversight, and they use their reconditioning software to structure work and then monitor and control its outcome to specific time deadlines.

CRYSTAL LAKE, IL, March 15, 2016 – From the CFPB’s encroaching influence on dealer finance and insurance practices to new challenges in human resources to increasing cyber crime exposures and day-to-day OSHA and EPA requirements, dealers in 2016 juggle considerable change.

“Dealership compliance in 2016 is increasingly difficult, given so many regulatory and social influences on the business today. Dealers want answers – and prefer not to wade through paperwork to find them, and we’re at NADA in Las Vegas again this year to provide direction,” said Terry Dortch, president, Automotive Compliance Consultants.

Dealers and their staff can visit the company at Booth 468C, where the compliance firm’s general counsel and vice president David Missimer also will answer questions, review why the CFPB is pushing dealers to adopt Compliance Management System software and practices, and address dealers’ other compliance challenges.

Also offering guidance will be representatives from Automotive Compliance Consultant’s network and data compliance partner, Nuspire Networks.     

Third-party access to the dealer management system for additional data applications needed by  CRM, data mining, lead generation systems, for example, are making dealership networks increasingly active targets for cyber criminals, Dortch said.

Automotive Compliance Consultants specializes in dealership and auto finance compliance, providing in-dealership consultations and analysis, compliance audits and training, and offers solutions for all compliance needs. The Automotive Compliance Consultants staff has extensive experience in the retail automotive industry and focuses exclusively on dealership compliance issues. For information, contact terry_dortch@compliantnow.com  or visit www.compliantnow.com

No dealer today can tolerate lost margin, yet dealers’ difficulty in managing and using OEM and vendor incentive funds costs them thousands of dollars a month in lost opportunity and sales.

The unused portion of an OEM or vendor sales program incentive fund (spiff) is referred to by sales and marketing as “breakage.” This represents opportunity for dealerships.

How to leverage this breakage to improve margin is a core theme of “Are You Leaving Money on the Table?” a presentation at theInnovative Dealer Summit 2016 in Denver by Sean Ugrin, founder and CEO of Colorado-based Spiffit, an end-to-end incentive dashboard application.

At the March 15–16 Summit at the Denver Conference Center, Ugrin will share best practices for increasing spiff utilization and optimization in service, sales, accessories, parts, and F&I departments. Read more.

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Consider these points:

• Vehicle tracking via spreadsheet or whiteboard, while an improvement over sticky notes, is neither transportable nor shareable. In my experience, use of these tracking tools falls into disuse after a brief and energetic start.
• Misplaced vehicles can be taken out of the process temporarily while they await parts or repair authorization. The busy-ness of the day means these units are too easily forgotten about – or take time to locate again when ready to reenter the process.
• Misplaced communication between recon and the used-car manager slows repair approvals, causing delays that mount up and erode gross margin.
• Many compensation plans are based on time, not units of production

Each of these inefficient processes cost money – in time, labor and days in recon. 

The recon process should flow from point A to B in linear fashion. If that looks like an assembly line, it is. Your recon processes may not include each of the steps that this illustration shows, but running recon like a factory focuses on maximizing output and reducing cost.

More details here.