Hello, and welcome to Getting Used Car Operations Ready for Uncharted Waters. This automotive news webinar is brought to you by ACV. We're delighted. You're here with us today for this presentation. I'm Dan Shine, Senior Editor, Automotive News, and Editor in Chief of Fixed Ops Journal. As a navigation tip, we encourage you to ask questions at any time when the mood hits you, just type your question into the Q and a box on the left side of the webinar window, and then hit send at the end of the presentation. We'll steer your questions to our speakers for them to answer. Today's speakers are Doug Hadden, Vice President of Field Operations for ACV Auctions, our leading dealer-to-dealer online wholesale automotive marketplace, and Randy Barone, Vice President of Business Development at ACV. And now I'll turn over to Randy and Doug to get us started.

Doug Hadden, Vice President of Field Operations

Hey, thanks Dan. Appreciate you good morning or afternoon, everybody depending on where you are in the country. Thanks for spending time with us today. Randy, if we want to, we can just jump right in. We can bypass the intros. Because Dan did a pretty good job there. I think what we'll do today is we're, we're gonna kind of help a little bit. 

Topics Covered

We wanna talk about a few things, so let's look at those topics for discussion inventory management, and proper stocking practices. That's, that's a big one, anytime sources of inventory. Look, we know that things have changed and that's one of the, one of the big things that have changed and we gotta, we're gonna really deep dive into that vehicle marketing to today's digital-centric customer. Gosh, Doug, what does that even mean?

And then advanced technologies to access car conditions more accurately. And what that truly means is what do we do as an industry to better define vehicles that we're having to buy and sell online because that's what's happening today. So I think we'll get started with this inventory management, you know Randy and I have worked together and known each other for quite a few years. And it was 20 some years ago, Randy called and said, Doug, I want you to come see this program that will help used car managers acquire, buy and sell vehicles wholesale. I said, Randy, we don't need anything from a program or a computer that will help us buy and sell cars wholesale. Cause we know everything there is to know, well, I was a little wrong there.

It is absolutely unbelievable how in the past 20 years things have changed being able to have that right vehicle acquired at the right price at the right time and be able to retail that vehicle being able to sell more cars faster fires, gross profit without the technology that we have today. A lot of that would not be possible. And Randy, I know you're out there pretty much every week. You're on the road, you're talking to some of the, you know, some of the best in the business out there, some of the larger dealer groups, some of the standalone franchise guys that just do a fantastic job. There are some guys and gals out there that have inventory management as their priority and they really do a fantastic job. So what's, you know, look, we know it's changed. What has changed and what do you see these high performers doing today, Randy?

Randy Barone, Vice President of Business Development

Well, Doug and I can't tell you how excited we are to be able to be on Automotive News and just be able to share, you know, when we talk about inventory management, you know, there's not a dealer in the country, you know, many years ago, when I said one day, everybody's gonna have this type of solution where we're managing our inventory. You know, it was like, oh, that's this guy's lost his mind, but I can tell you, you don't walk into a dealership today that doesn't have some form of inventory management that they're paying for. The tough part is right now where the market is, you know, we're just off the chart at where the market is. So a lot of that inventory management is kind of felt to the wayside, but I can't tell you how important it really is to be able to focus on this.

Inventory Management - Having the Right Inventory

You know, we're seeing some things change right now. We're seeing, you know, it's not inventory isn't back. There are not tons of cars that are out there. So we're still in an inventory shortage, but where I'm talking about on the inventory management side, it's those Moride cars, it's those cars that it's a 20, 22 with a hundred thousand miles on it. We're starting to see those cars greatly start to change the biggest problems I see with dealers out there today, as far as their inventory management tools is that we're not focused on having the right inventory, having enough inventory, and making sure that we're really keeping the eye on that supply of inventory. So in the 20 group meetings and everything that I'm speaking at right now, I'm really pushing the dealers to be at a 30-day supply of inventory to actually know how many times they're turning that inventory.

Maximize your profits with Inventory Management 

You know, in the past, if a dealer was turning that inventory 12 times a year, you know, we were patting 'em on the back. I'm actually telling you now that you know, we need to be turning that inventory much faster, keeping a much shorter day supply, but I'm not telling you to sell fewer cars. I'm actually telling you to use these inventory management tools for what they were designed for to maximize your profits, maximize your turn rate, and maximize actually getting more eyeballs on the vehicles. But when you look at it overall, we need to start going back and utilizing these tools for right now, to be able to know what to stock, how many to stock, what're the right ones to be able to go after versus, Hey, we're just gonna go out and buy everything cuz we can sell everything right now. I assure you that we still see on our side, the right car turns the right car priced, right?

Despite the shortage, don’t let your Vehicle Inventory Drop Too Low

Turns faster makes us great profits. The wrong car priced right, is still the wrong car. And I can tell you that you don't want the wrong car right now. Because you bought that car at a premium, that car's sitting on your lot and it's becoming aged. And now that car's gonna be a nightmare for you when this market starts to turn and we're already seeing some of that stuff start to turn right now. So I would be very focused on when we talk about inventory management, we talk about having the right cars and having the right amount of cars, but having a steady supply, many dealers let their inventory drop down low and that crushes their sales ability right now, stores that I'm walking into are so short on inventory. They're parking cars, long ways. They're skipping gaps in cars. They're trying to make their inventories look fuller.

Don’t over focus on just Market Data

I can tell you right now the dealers that are, you know, we're gonna buy cars, we're gonna supply our cars and they're looking at multiple channels of cars. So we're gonna talk about acquiring inventory as well on this. But I definitely wanted to go through and talk about having the ability to not just use market data. A lot of companies out there are using market data and they're so focused on market data that they're actually market data that can send you in the wrong direction. What do I mean by that? Well, I've got the world's largest Toyota dealership in my market. So obviously based on market data, it's gonna sit back and say that I should be stocking Toyota, Camry’s late-model ones. Guess what? You can't buy that car for the same price that Toyota dealer can. You don't have the certified programs to be able to help that sell that car at the, they don't have the special financing.

Just don’t acquire by Make & Model

‍
I can tell you that just because it's a great car in the market, doesn't always mean it's gonna be a great car for your store using factual data and using factual information. Here's how fast I turn these cars on how much money I make on those cars. So making sure that we have that type of data, to be able to say like this example, you're seeing on the screen, I need 10, either Tahoe or Yukons because of that particular category. I only have three. I'm missing seven. So I need seven of these. Guess what? That means my car's out in service. My car's in my CRM directly communicating with consumers that have these Tahoes and Yukons. I wanna go after them to be able to acquire those vehicles. So being able to break that data down and actually say, not just, I need X amount of Tahoes or Yukons, but these are the year models I need.

Acquire Specific Inventory based on Trims, Colors, & Price Bands

These are the trims that I need. These are the colors that I need. And these are the price bands that I need. Then you're starting to stock an inventory that I can tell you. I know it's gonna turn because the right car, people will hunt down that car. You can spend less on marketing that car's gonna turn faster. You can have that steady supply. The problem that we're seeing right now, dealers are running low on inventory. They run out and say, oh, we have to go buy a bunch of cars. And where's the only place to go buy. A bunch of cars are at the auction. I'm, we're owned by an auction. What you're talking about, but ACV is not just an auction. I wanna help you guys be able to know what cars to stock. The right amount of cars, have a steady supply of cars and you need to knock this down.

Source Inventory from All Channels (Auctions, Trade-Ins, Service Dept)

When you're talking about inventory management, you need to get to know how many cars per day that you need to acquire. And I don't mean just from an auction, how many cars we need to trade for? How many cars we buy from the consumer? How many cars that we actually come through, our service department, knowing all these avenues and then making it, breaking it down to a small bite. And when you have it down to a small bite, you can say, I know I need to acquire five cars per day. And I don't care where they come from. I have all these different avenues, but I have to make sure that I acquire five cars to keep my inventory at an optimum dollar on a day's supply of that inventory. So I don't run short. I don't hurt my volume. I don't hurt my sales people, but I also, I'm not putting myself at a great wholesale loss because I'm running with a shorter day supply of that inventory. When the deal gets shorter on inventory, they overstock, they buy a bunch of cars all at the same time, and they all age at the same time.

Doug Hadden, Vice President of Field Operations

Hey Randy, you said by that last screen, you needed seven Tahoes and that's not, no, that's not based on the fact that there's a lot of Tahoes sold in the area. That's based on what that particular dealer did in his dealership. So, those run rates and that's all based on actual transactional data. Not, not something that's advertised out there in the marketplace, correct?

Base Your Inventory Decisions on Factual Data, Like Walmart does

That is, that is correct. So you wanna base your decisions based on factual data. You know, I'll take the car business out of it. Doug, when you look at, when you walk into a Walmart, Doug, they're actually, they're not stocking the Walmart based on what they think works. They're walking around with a device. They can scan any product in their inventory and it'll actually tell them here's how many we sold. Here's how fast they turn. Here's how much money we make on them. They know you won't walk into a Walmart. Doug has the same stocking because each Walmart is different and their management teams know what is turning on this side of it in a grand scale, we're talking about vehicles that can turn and age overnight. So we have to understand that when this market starts to turn, I gotta have the right cars, the right ones.

Combining Historical & Market Data to become Number One

And Doug, I don't want you to be so factual based that I'm only using historical data because where does market data become important? Knowing what cars are hot and short in the market. So I'm also showing you Doug, these are the cars that are short and hot in your market. That you've never, so you've never stopped. But guess what? If you fulfill your core inventory, the ones that you do well with, and then add it with cars that are short and hot, not just because this particular car does well in the market. No, this car is short and hot stock. Those cars, that car could become part of your core because you've never stocked them. And now you're growing your used car opportunities, the type of tools and the type of mentality that we have at ACV is that mentality. I'm not putting myself in a box. I'm not just using market data. I'm not just using historical data. I'm looking at historical, I'm looking at the market and I'm looking at artificial intelligence to develop an inventory for that dealership. I don't want to be just number one in my little area. I wanna be number one in my market. Number one in my state, number one in the country. That's how big the opportunity is for a dealer right now. And that kind of inventory management mentality will actually help me get there. And that's what we need to take a look at today.

Stock the right Car Inventory -  Maximize Profitability and Minimize Turn

Yeah, that's, it's definitely changed. It's definitely not what it used to be. It's definitely not. You know, walking around with that book in your back pocket, you know, those blue jeans that have that square spot, you know, from wearing that, from having that book in that back pocket for so long if you're not using the data, if you're not focused. And, and I, I gotta tell you, you know, Randy and I both travel the country and we talked to a lot of dealers. There's guys out there that are hyper-focused, look today, you can pretty much sell anything. You know, you, you buy it, you sell it, you take it in trade, you sell it. It's a supply and demand issue. But the folks that are the operators that are hyper-focused, they're doing just what Randy's talking about. They're still making sure they have the best inventory they can maximize their profitability and minimize their turn, which in turn minimizes any liability they might be having down the road.

Be Focused and Don’t get Underwater

When things turn, how sustainable is this? How long is this gonna last? Nobody knows, but I can tell you that the ones Randy's talking about that are hyper-focused on inventory management, they won't be stuck. They won't be, they won't be going, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do with these 25 cars that I'm now underwater on? Because they're focused on that inventory management plan, Randy. That's awesome. Now the next step then is, and Randy mentioned quite a few times is you know, things have changed drastically. It used to be. And, Randy, I don't know if you were the same way, but when I was working the used card desk I waited for trades to come in. That was my inventory, right? That's always the best source of inventory, cuz you're working both ends of the deal.

Don’t Live by just Trade-Ins for Used Inventory 

You, you know where you're at, they brought that car to you as a trade. You didn't have to go out and search it down. They want to buy a new car. They don't want that car. I mean, that's the best, best possible case scenario, but there's not that many trades anymore. There's a lot of things. A lot of folks sucking up those trades. There's a lot of things happening out there that have never happened before. So how do I go out and source my inventory? And Randy, you touched on it. There's a lot of different ways to do that. We, we have seen some unbelievable changes in this marketplace and, and you know, it used to be, I'll go if I don't get it in trade, I'll go to the auction and I'll spend all day, you know, I'll, I'll get in the car and I'll drive for, you know, two hours or whatever it is out of town to, to get to the auction.

Speed Up the Process when purchasing at Car Auctions 

I'll spend, you know, like I know Randy did two hours walking cars in the morning, booking everything out and making sure you got the right cars. And then when the auction starts and you're trying to buy those cars, then you're running around. Cause you've got lane one over here and you've got a car in lane six over there and you're trying to do it. You can't do that anymore. I know a lot of folks have moved into the world of digital acquisition. You got, now you got two or three screens up. You're buying it in multiple places, but it's the next level. Now, you've got two or three screens. You still may not be able to acquire not only the right amount of vehicles, but you may not be able to acquire the vehicles that you need. So Randy, what is it you see out there? And again, you're out there every day, where are these cars coming from? What are some of the things that dealers can do today? Whether right, like right today, after they hang up, this, this, this WebEx, what are some of the things they can do to acquire the right vehicles that they've never done before?

Be Open to New Ways to Source Used Car Inventory

Well, Doug, I would tell you that it's the, the world has certainly changed in this particular area because you know, me standing up on the stage at NADA in the year 2000 and telling dealers that you need to be buying cars from consumers and you need to look at these other sources. And I used to have dealers look at me and go, you know, Randy, man, I trade for so many cars. I'm not worried about this. I don't have to do any of the things you're telling. We trade for so many cars. I don't have a problem. I don't buy cars from the auction and those same dealers today. If they would've put those processes in place that I was trying to share, then if they would've done that back then today, they wouldn't have any problem with inventory. They would have more than enough sources of cars.

Keep Acquiring Inventory Different Ways even when the shortage Ends

When you look at what's actually taking place, we know we're all in a massive car shortage, even if that turns around tomorrow and we start having the car, the supply of cars just jumps back up. I would tell you that I would still keep the pedal, my foot on the gas about acquiring cars from other sources. I can tell you firsthand. We have the data that backs it up. Cars that we buy from consumers, cars that we buy from other sources, these cars turn faster. We make more profit on those cars. Having a good assortment of vehicles makes me inventory independent, not dependent. That means I'm not waiting on everybody else for cars. When you look at this kind of data here, this really sums it up. This is NADA's information. I've been following this forever. And I can tell you, this is the latest of NADA's information.

Buy more inventory “Off the Street”

If you notice there, it says sources of franchise dealers, inventory, and it's now showing 8%. I can tell you what that number used to be. It used to be a number that started with a decimal. That means there were that few cars that dealers were actually buying off the street. You have more and more dealers now buying cars off the street, but they're still doing it in a very small comparison to other players that are out there. So what I want you to get out of this workshop today, and I've covered some of this before, I would tell you that I want you to actually own the market on cars. I'll share a quick story with you in the last 20 group. I was just in, I told the dealer, if it's got a consumer attached to it, the word is never “No”. 

Don’t be too choosy with customer car inventory 

How can we? So a customer pulls in one dealer out of all the dealers that were in that 20 group went back and actually applied something that I was talking about. The dealer turns around. Customer pulls into his dealership with a Toyota Corolla. That's been hit in the front, hit in the back, and it has hail damage on salesperson, walks out to talk to the customer. The customer says, I, you know what? I wanna sell you guys. My car, the salesperson comes in and tells the used car manager used car manager says, you know what? He walks out and looks at it. It goes, we don't wanna buy that car. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. The dealer happened to hear them say that. And he said, what is that car worth to the used car manager?'' The used car manager said, then I'd give you three grand for that car.

It’s not just about the car, but about winning a customer

The dealer walks out, talks to the customer, buys the car from the consumer. Turns around, makes a deal with the customer, buys the car. The next day, launches it up on ACV. That $3,000 car brought $7,400. That's not the best part of the story. The best part of the story is that there's a customer that they would've let leave. And would've gone to a car maps, a Carvana or some other big box player. And they would've lost out on the most important part of consumer because that customer that originally said, I just wanna sell my car was over on their used car. Lot, wandering the used car lot with his salesperson while he was waiting for his wife to come pick him up, the person needs another car. They were just doing the typical customer. I don't need anything right now. I just wanna sell my car.

Why Trade-ins are declining at Dealerships 

They can turn that deal into a sale. So when we're talking about all of this, the number of trades coming to the dealership is declining. And why is it declining? It's declining because of what's happening right now are companies like this. This is their data. This is their information. And I'm not, I'm not telling you that, oh, these big, bad companies I'm telling you, these companies adapted because they didn't have all the trades. And from day one, they turned around and said, we have to buy cars from the consumer. And these companies have done an unbelievable job buying over one and a half million cars. Where did those cars come from? It's not just an additional 1.5 cars that entered the market. No, these are 1.5 million vehicles that came from you guys, the franchise stores. So what they've done, and if you look at the numbers, 264 locations, they average buying 20.3 cars per day.

There is still an opportunity for Dealers to own Trade-Ins

From those locations. If you look at the Carvana on a smaller scale, 24 locations buying 32.4 cars per day, all that meaning to you is there's an unbelievable opportunity that you guys are the Kings. You guys are the experts. We just need to put those processes in place. This is not a plan. I know many of you have a, a, a sign out on your lot, or you have a on your website. It's got a widget there. Hey, you know what? That's a start, but that's not a complete plan. I'm talking about having a real process to be able to buy these cars. Some of you said, oh, you know what? I'm gonna go use instant cash offer. As an example, I've got that on my website, Randy. It's phenomenal. Let me just tell you what happens when this customer comes in. You're relying on KBB.

Build your own Dealership brand to Acquire Inventory

You're building K's brand. You need to have your own brand. You need to be promoting yourself. I'm an older person. I know what KBB is. My son's 29 years old. He doesn't know KB KBB from anybody. If I ask him, Hey, do you know CarMax? Do you know Carvana? Absolutely he does. So we don't want to build up their brand. We wanna build up your dealership brand. Every bit of marketing you do goes to promoting your brand because here's what happens. I plugged this car into KBB. It came back at 12,533. I launched that same vehicle on our auction. It brought 15 five, almost three grand. More than what KBB said. Why is that so important? Well, guess what? On KBB people go on there and put a bogus phone number in because they just want to get a vehicle value. Now I got that 12,533 number, and I, as a consumer, relate that number that I got to your dealership.

Customers want a fixed price on a trade-in, not a range

So Doug, your Chevrolet store just tried to steal my trade because guess what? Carvana just told me my cars worth 14 grand. So we have to have a better way to give a consumer a real number. And I'm not talking about a range, ranges, drive people insane. We'll certainly build it with a range for you, but I'm telling you today, customers don't want to play games. We gotta stop playing games with the customer. We have many different ways. So when you look at a process and I'm not selling you on ACV, I want you to have a process at your dealership. Way more than a sign, way more than just telling, having a widget on your website. If you look at a process, this is one of our stores' processes. So the process is I can obviously go online and I can get an instant value on the car.

Inspect the vehicle where the customer is

I can get an estimated offer for that vehicle. And I bring the vehicle down to the dealership, or guess what? I don't want to come down to the dealership. We'll send somebody to their home, their work, inspect the car, and then tell you the dealership. Hey, here's this, here's the inspection on this car. Then you as a dealer, get to decide, do I want to keep that car? Or do I wanna turn it in the wholesale profit right there in the driveway, we can help you do that. Even if the car is outta state, we have thousands of people across the country that can go do that. To help you make car deals on top of that, if you said, Nope, Randy, we wanna do it just like this. We'll give him a, after we inspect it, we'll give him a real value for that car.

Use a White-label product for your Dealership to drive leads

And then you turn around and optimize that. If you got a digital retail process, we can plug that number back into that, and literally complete a whole transaction online, being very transparent to the consumer and helping them buy the car. We don't just stop there. We built our own solution. This can be white-labeled for your dealership. Literally I'm showing stores how they can get this product for free from us to be able to have a white labeled product on their site, to be able to have this included in their dealership where I can have a place to drive traffic to drive my service leads, drive my CRM leads, drive customers that hit my website, but I'm not promoting another company. I'm promoting your dealership with your name on it. And it's your program. And it has no naming of ACV or Drivably or anywhere.

Give customers a real number for their car

It's all your backing, your name, and driving your product in seconds. The customer can go through and answer a few easy questions that are customized around what you guys want. And it'll give them a real offer for that car. Not hitting that car really lower. It runs that customer off, hitting them with a real number. And in increasing the number of customers that are coming in your dealership, we've even taken this further and said, you know what? Your dealership's busy. You got, you got so many people working hard at this. We have experts that can be advocates that can communicate with that customer within 10 minutes, and then help you guys drive even more traffic in your dealership and be able to have you acquiring more cars directly from consumers.

The days of lowballing customers are over

So, so Randy, what you're saying is when I would tell my salesman when I'm working the desk and he is like, the customer wants to know what their car's worth. And I would say, don't tell 'em what their car's actually worth or I'd give 'em a low ball so I could go work 'em those days are gone completely because I enjoy doing that back in the day. 

Give customers the value of their car over the phone or online…or someone else will. 

I don't, doesn't the idea of you telling me, I can't tell you anything over the phone or I can't tell you something online. All that's done is that the customer gets right off with you and goes on to the next place and gets the information they want. And you never see that consumer. So today's world. I have a very short attention span, attention span of a goldfish. I need that information. If you're not gonna get it, I can get it from somewhere. And unfortunately, when I see CarMax and Carvana and these other companies buying 1.5 million vehicles from a consumer, they're definitely doing something. And I'm giving you the tools and the ability to get that set up in your dealership and build a process around it. That is much more detailed that you guys can compete. I know you can't spend millions of dollars in advertising, but I'm gonna show you ways that you can wind up doing that.

Live Auctions are a way to get additional inventory to your dealership

So we actually do things like this. We do live auction events at the dealership. We'll actually work with your teams to mark it out to customers, to be able to drive customers in for a live auction event, and actually have it where we promote it. We'll bring people out that we actually run this live auction. Some of our dealerships take it so seriously that they set up big screens for the consumers, kinda like a carnival event. We just did. One of these in Dallas, the dealership bought over, had 60 additional customers show up to the dealership over and above their normal day. That dealer bought 40 cars directly from consumers that day. And these aren't trades. I went to get my car run through that live auction. It sold and you, the dealer, have three days to decide if you want to keep that car or not. But that many additional vehicles came in. The ones they wanted. They kept the ones they didn't, they wholesale. And they made wholesale profit off of that as well. And rather than hearing me talk about it, I'll let you see a quick video to be able to understand and see what I'm talking about.

‍Live Appraisals give Transparency to Customers

Now our live appraisal offer. There's no cost. All you need to do is bring in your car and we'll take care of the rest. There are lots of people out there today wanting to purchase your car. You know, you're getting the best deal. Appraisals are the most trusted way to see what your car is actually worth. Live appraisals. Use the nation's leading digital automotive marketplace. With over 16,000 marketplace participants dealers from across the country will fit on your cost to the live 20-minute, third-party option. Either to the best price for your car. At the end of the option, the choice is yours to accept the final bid. If you accept cash, there's never been a better time to sell your car, ask your dealer to learn more today.

Develop your brand and drive those leads to your website

The guys, again, just a phenomenal way to be able to market drive more customers to what you're doing. You know, last time I shared with you guys acquiring vehicles using over 20 different methods. What we've ramped that to now, I give you a widget. You have a widget on your website. I'm driving traffic to it. That's branded by your name. All these things that we're talking about here can all drive customers right into that widget. You've got customers out in service that have equity. They need to have a landing page rather than sending them through your KBB. You wouldn't wanna do that. You'd wanna share leads with other people. You can run those right through your own internal process. So to the consumer, here's your offer. Here's how we got it. Here's the information, all these different methods that we've talked about, increasing your trade closing ratio.

Incentivize your team to buy cars too

I can tell you right now, we're not focused on this as much as we need to be your trade closing ratio right now needs to be 70 to 80%. And I'm not talking about losing money in wholesale. We need to be paying our salespeople to buy cars the same way we pay them to sell cars, all these different methods that I'm not gonna take the time to go through today. I promise you. If you reach out to us, I will turn around and don't cost you anything. I'll share these with you. I'll help you set 'em up in your dealership. This is about you. Acquiring more cars has nothing to do with ACV. We want to help your dealerships succeed. And I know you need other sources of inventory. These are incredible ways. I've got dealers right now that have plugged in many of the tools that you're talking about here.

The faster you catch the customers in the funnel, the better the car

And they're seeing phenomenal results, not just buying cars from an auction. They're still trading for cars. They're still buying cars from the auction, but they have all these other branches now that are feeding them inventory. And when you see their lots, they have cars and they don't have the ones that are the off colors. They've got the hot merchandise, because guess what? The higher up you catch that customer in the funnel, the better the car, the better the customer that you're gonna have. You wanna be known as the place where you sell a car. You wanna be known as the place to buy a car. You wanna be able to know that we take care of customers. Automotive needs no matter where, and this is gonna give you that ability. I shared this with you and I, I can't. I just wanna keep pressing on you to be able to say some of these things don't cost you any money.

Valets are a good way to increase awareness 

This is that valet side, Texas direct was doing this. They bought a hundred cars a day from consumers. Their way of thinking outside the box, you guys need to focus on the valets, the new digital valets. You need to reach out to these digital valet com companies in your market area. So when that customer valets their car right on the top of it, when they're calling for that claim for that car to be pulled up, it says, oh, by the way, ABC Chevrolet would love to buy your car. Click here. When I click there, it goes right into your own widget to give them a value for their trade. Now I'm communicating the right way with a consumer. We can do that for you today. And those things cost little to nothing. It's insane not to sit there and work it out. One step further.

Use technology like Smart Acquisition Manager to acquire inventory

When we talk about inventory, I know it's very difficult right now. I know some of you have Stockwave. Some of you're doing many other things to be able to acquire cars. You need cars, but you need 'em in the right condition. So what we've built and designed, this is called Sam, it's smart acquisition manager. I, Randy, I don't have time to sit through a 20-minute option. I don't have time to look at online sales. I don't have time to go through Stockwave and set up all that stuff. You don't have to right here. You can plug in what you need. I can take your buy list from whatever system you're on. Plug it right into this. If you're on our system, we'll automatically populate the fields here. So I can get you the car you want the year, the make the model, the trim, what colors you don't want, what states you don't wanna buy from.

Use technology to find inventory that you need

And then amazingly enough, I can actually take that data and run it against our incredible inspection report. So I'm only gonna bring you cars that actually pass your condition. So our inspectors that do that incredibly detailed inspection, those 85 different inspection points. I reverse engineered that into this tool. So you can go through and say, I never wanna have a car that has body damages. I never wanna have a car that has this issue. Check engine light, you set it up the way you want. And then literally you can go through and set how many you need, what you're willing to pay. Either paying over book, paying at market, paying at whatever level you wanna be able to do will find you the cars in the right condition for the right dollar amount, and be able to set that up for you right through the system.

Set your vehicle filters and let the inventory come to you

So this process will enable you to literally set it up and forget it. And I can alert you two ways. You can, I'll send you alerts right to your smartphone with a text or an email. When you click on it, it goes right into that car that's running. Or if you said, you know, Randy, I don't even have time for that. I'll programmatically buy you those cars and our stores that are doing that are running at below a 1.6% arbitration. Why? Because we do such a phenomenal job of inspecting those cars. I'm buying dealers, hundreds of cars each and every month off of what we're doing, because this kind of tool makes it very, very easy to find you the right car in the right condition for the right dollar amount. It doesn't get any better than that. All I'm really telling you is we need to open up those avenues, open up your dealership, think way outside the box, and have a steady supply of inventory coming from many, many sources.

Wow. That's I mean, we'll talk about the technology here in just a few minutes, but that is, think about that for a second. We went from, I gotta smell it. I gotta feel it. I gotta touch it. I gotta rub my hand down. Everybody seems to make sure the thing has, I have to do that. How long did that take on every car? And you're out in the middle of the park. Yeah. In the middle of the lot out there at the auction, searching those cars. Now you it's the car. You set that up. You let the tech do the work and those vehicles arrive. And those three that the condition you want, the price you want, at the time you want.

Technology has also changed the ways to sell cars

No, that technology, I just told you about costs you zero. It's free. So there's absolutely no reason not to. Do it. Unbelievable. We'll talk about that technology on that in just a second. But, now, so, Randy, we talked about, we talked about managing the inventory that you have. We talked about getting more of the right inventory in the, in the different ways to get that inventory. So now we know what inventory we need. We've acquired that inventory in multiple ways and now I gotta sell it. Right? That's what we're all here for. We wanna sell more cars faster for gross profit. That's why we're all here. Well, today it's not, it's not, it's not the Autotrader magazine of old, right? You remember sitting there waiting on Tuesday for the Autotrader person to come by and you'd scratch out the list, hand it to 'em. They go out, they'd take the pictures. It would show up.

Customers are very educated about the vehicles already 

Then we got super high tech. And now it's all, all the stuff that we do, we did online, but it was still the same thing. It was take the photos, write those ads you know, fully loaded power steering, power and power locks, power seats. You know, we did we, for years, we did that, but I don't think that works anymore the way it used to. We have consumers out there that know more about the vehicles that we're selling than the folks that are selling those vehicles. How Randy, what are, what are some of the things you see today? And some of the tools that folks are using to, to market vehicles, to that digitally, I call 'em digital centric, you know, consumers, but those folks that aren't walking into the store anymore. They're doing their walking before they get there through the internet, how, what are we doing today? What are the best doing today to make that work for them,

Present your vehicle better than everybody in the country not just down the street 

Doug? You know, because I've got the luxury of having, having been done this way before there was all this digital and all this online stuff. All I used to have to focus on was out presenting the guy down the street. Now that's totally changed. So now I've gotta, I've gotta out present everybody in the country. So it's really opened up that field. We have to get away from this kind of ties into your, you know, inventory management, your vehicle, sourcing, all these things come together because the right car, people will hunt down the right car. You don't have to do as much marketing. You don't have to spend all these crazy dollars trying to sell that car. But on the flip side, many companies have you so focused on SRP and VDP. Their whole mindset is around that. Let me just chair with you something.

Looking at the VDPs and SRPs is important, but don’t just focus on that

And I can, I don't wanna bust anybody's bubble. Cause I know you guys look at this every day, but I'm gonna leave, let you on, on a little secret. That's very manipulative data. So even though my products have SRP and VDP in them, this is the way I use SRPs. And VDP SRPs is how many times did my car show up in a search? Well, guess what if my car's showing up in very low searches, I'm very concerned about that. My car's not getting very many clicks, so it's not getting the VDP. I will tell you again, that's very alarming to me. And I gotta look into that. And our systems will certainly alert you to that when a car has high SRP, that doesn't mean that that particular car is a great car for you to have in your inventory. Absolutely. Doesn't always mean that.

Exotics, Luxury, & Sports Cars are searched a lot, but don’t always result in sales

What I mean by that is I can look at a Mustang GT. Every high school kid in the planet wants a Mustang GT. I can tell you, so guess what? That car's gonna be highly searched after it's gonna be highly clicked on by me and my buddies. We all clicked on the Mustang GTS. What's the fastest car? How what's the horsepower of that car? Guess what? Their parents are not gonna buy them. That Mustang GT, you just made a bad marketing decision. When I'm talking about marketing and vehicle marketing, I'm talking about thinking way different right now, your grosses are off the charts. So many of you aren't even focused in this particular area. We have such little inventory. You know, Randy, we put a car in line at car sales overnight, no technology, no software right now can claim credit for the incredible grosses that you guys have right now.

The auto industry has peaks and valleys…Be prepared for both

But let me just tell you, if you wanna hang onto those great grosses, we know the market's gonna turn those of us who have been doing this long enough. We know there are peaks in the valleys. It's going to turn. What you should be doing right now is very focused on vehicle marketing. In the past, everybody was focused on pricing cars against each other. And that was the coolest thing in the world. When you first started doing it, I'm the first dealer on the auto, I'm the first dealer on this system. And I can price the car right below you guess what? That was full. But what happens when 95% of the dealers are doing the exact same thing, all we do is just give up our gross right now. It's not happening, cuz we're in such a vehicle shortage, but I promise you that a tidal wave is coming.

Make sure the package data on the vehicle is accurate to get higher gross returns

So why not be prepared for it? So what I talk about and I promise you, this makes, this is just real selling and we all have to get back to real selling, building value and not just impressing that person that walks on my lot. That's obviously very important. But before that customer gets to my lot, I want my car to stand out way different than Doug's car. My car and do's car can have the same exact equipment on 'em. They can be the exact same kind of car with the same equipment. My car's gonna look like it's more expensive. My car looks like it has more value. I don't have to give away my car like Doug does because my car's gonna stand out to the consumer. How do I do that? Well, I actually have the build package data on the cars and I know all the packages that have been added to that vehicle.

Show the customer the value of the vehicle by using data like KBB and JD Power

So when I go to show a customer a vehicle, I'm literally letting you know the consumer. Here's where our vehicle is. Our vehicle's a great value. Here's where our vehicles compare out in the marketplace. Here's how it compares to JD power KBB. Here's how that vehicle lists out in the marketplace. I'm giving you real world examples of it. I'm automatically building that description, not by a person clicking boxes or trying to figure out what's on that product. I know you can do that on your own brand, but try and do that on all the other brands. I can do that for you on every one of the vehicles in your new inventory and your used inventory. And when I'm talking about describing a vehicle, I'm talking about this, literally this particular truck, Mr. Customer, I know the reason why you wanna buy my truck. And the reason why you inquired about my truck, my truck has $9,970 worth of premium upgrades.

Use the vehicle packages as a selling tool

It has that 3 0 2, a luxury package, which is the most sought after package on this particular truck. And guess what? Our truck has it. And here's what's included in that package. Now I can use this as a salesperson. I can use this as a consumer searching a vehicle. Nobody else is breaking out the packages and the dollar amounts I'll guarantee you one thing for those of you that said, oh, Randy, we solved that. We use auto I packet. We give the customer the window sticker, buddy. You're selling the car over window sticker. Do you really wanna show that to the consumer? I know I certainly don't. I don't want 'em to know how much over or how much under that particular window sticker is. I'm breaking out the packages, the description with the equipment and actually breaking that out so well that all that description for the consumer is being done automatically.

Building Value & Making your car stand out with packages and add ons 

And the packages are here. I'm not just telling them on your system. When you click on that, it's got a trailer to it, I'm not just telling you that. I don't know as a consumer, is that a hitch that you got put on at U-Haul or is that one that's been aftermarket? No, Mr. Customer, this is a trailer tow package. This vehicle was designed to tow and here's what's included in that package. Matter of fact, that package was a thousand dollars when it was new. That's what I'm talking about on marketing. That's what I'm talking about. Building value, making your car stand out, not just saying price. We've gotten so far away from real selling and building value. You're telling me that you're gonna take a white car with tan and interior with all the right equipment on it. That is a much better seller than this same car, even in another color, but you're gonna go in and go, Nope.

Use QR Codes to help the sales team on the car lot

They told me I gotta be an X percent of market and I gotta reprice that car. You are losing it. You're giving away gross and you're falling to what somebody has sold you. And that information is as wrong as it could possibly be. I'm building something for you for right now. And when this market changes, we have to get back to real selling. This will help your customer online. This will help your sales people when they're on the lot. Because even when I do their window stickers, I actually build 'em with a QR code. QR codes have made a huge comeback today because frankly, if you're gonna eat in a restaurant, you figured out how to use a QR code. Guess what all you have to do is hold your camera up to that. And when you do that, it's gonna give me as a salesperson.

QR Codes allow flexibility to send car information easily 

Even if I'm not on the lot with a customer, I can scan that QR code. I've got all the features, the benefits, everything on why this is such a good deal for you, Mr. Customer, for a consumer, I can send you, I can email you that link, text you, that link or dubbed right now you can take out your phone and hold it on there. Cuz Doug, I'm gonna go up and talk to my manager. And while I'm talking to my manager, Doug, take a look at this particular exciting vehicle that you've, that you've picked out today. When Doug does that, he's not on Autotrader cars.com being bombarded by display ads. I'm keeping him focused right there on my vehicle while I'm up there talking to the manager, that's selling, that's marketing online and in person utilizing that tool for my BDC, utilizing that tool for my dealership. This is the wave of the future. And having that type of automation is what you definitely want to have inside your store.

Technology is going to help you sell inventory better

So, when I was working at the Toyota store and we'd have a F 250 come in and the customer would come in, Hey, tell me about this. My best shot was power. One is power steering, power locks, power seats. I couldn't Hey, does it have a tow package? Yeah, there's a hitch on that thing that doesn't cut it anymore. The, the having those, the, you know, I didn't know there was an 8 27 B package. I didn't know what that was. I had no clue what that was. The consumers know what that is now. So if we don't keep up, that's, that's what Randy's talking about. That's selling again, that's getting back to selling, knowing your product and, and selling that product and, and it's technology. That's gonna help us do that today. I

Intuition is good, but using data to make better decisions to source inventory is better 

Think they do know one thing. That's pretty wild. I walk into stores every day and they say, Nope, we just traded for that car. And that particular car scores out to be this particular letter or whatever they're using in their systems today. And we're gonna wind up getting rid of that. What I'm gonna tell you right now is even though your store may actually, I don't care what the data says. I don't care what the market says. Your store has a DNA. And when you know your DNA, I don't care what's happening around me buddy. This particular car turns fast and we make unbelievable profits on it. And guess what? Sharp used car managers. They've got that in their brain. And they've got that in their gut. This is way too big of an operation to sit there and manage that way. When you're using that type of mindset of what sharp used car people know to do, and you build it in and use technology on that.

Don’t be closed-minded to Technology in the Automotive industry

That's what makes the difference. So when, while we're talking about technology, Doug, I know that I've looked at this stuff and man, it just looks crazy to me and I, I, I don't even pretend to start to know any of this. I know you've spent a lot of time with our tech teams that are just off the charts. We've got things that are patented and you know what guys that's exactly where the industry is. Our industry is off the charts. It is changing every day. You don't wanna be left behind. You always want to be on the cutting edge, aware of what's out there. So don't stick your head in the sand and say, oh, that's something new. We all can sit back and say, you know what? I never thought CarMax was gonna make it. I never thought the internet was gonna take off.

If you don’t keep up with technology, you will lose on opportunities

I never thought somebody was gonna buy it. This was my brother who was an unbelievable General manager at Valley Motors. Mercedes-Benz out in California. He said, Randy, nobody's ever gonna pay you for a car that they don't ever get the drive, see, touch, smell, feel. And amazingly enough, in 2004, we were selling a gazillion cars on eBay and people all over the world were buying those cars and would never see 'em. So just understand that things change. And it's incredible. What's out there? And Deb, when I see this, man, I just get absolutely blown away.

Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence are being used now in the automotive industry 

Well, yeah. And, and here's the scary part that was 2004 and things are continuing to change and they're, it's an acceleration of change and that's, that's due to this, this thing we, we hear of stuff all the time we talk, we hear it on the news. We kind of read about it. We don't necessarily understand it. We hear artificial intelligence and machine learning. It's like artificial intelligence and machine learning. What does that have to do with this business? Well, it really boils down to this, the fact that we're, we're trying to find vehicles in, in ways. We've never had to source them before. Majority of those are being sourced off of our lot. We don't source, we don't source cars off a lot anymore. We are almost all the cars we source are off lot. They don't come to us. So how do I get a clear picture as a used car manager, someone that's buying them, how do I get a clear picture of that vehicle?

Artificial Intelligence is already being used today

How do I know that vehicle that I'm seeing on my screen, on my phone? How do I know that's gonna be the vehicle that shows up that, that condition? Well, that's artificial intelligence. That's machine learning. It's not today and it may not be tomorrow, but it's not far away that the, the, the combination of onboard diagnostics and, and small digital tools that'll be used, I'll do it this way. Picture this, you, you, a check engine light comes on where there's an issue. Your car's not running properly. You pull into the local auto parts store. Well, Doug, why would you go to an auto parts store? If you don't know anything about cars, I'll tell you why, because you walk up to the auto parts store and the kid at the counter, you go, Hey, my car's not running. Good. Guy says, no problem and grabs a little box, walks out, sets it on the hood, starts the car, grabs it up a couple times.

Machine Learning and Trained Condition Report - The perfect combination. 

He goes, oh, well, the problem is number four cylinders week because of X, Y, and Z. And it gives you a printout and tells you what parts you need, what the labor should be like. They, again, it's not tomorrow or it's not today or tomorrow, but it's definitely right around the corner. And I'll give you a couple examples of, of, of how that works today. And some of the things that happened with the, with the condition reports that we do. And, and I wanna make sure we're clear here. Technology is fantastic too, in fact, you know, I'm the old guy. I'm amazed at some of the things that the technology will do today, but what it won't do it won't do it by itself. You still have to have the people in this instance, you have to have unbelievably well trained condition report writers to go out and use that technology to represent that car so that when you see that vehicle and it arrives in your dealership after you purchase at wholesale, it's actually that car, Randy said it earlier.

Trained inspectors along with tools like AMP™ are giving an accurate vehicle condition

It's that we tie this artificial intelligence to machine learning and these unbelievably well trained inspectors. We, the combination of that putting into that Sam, t smart acquisition manager, truly can get you the vehicles that you need for the price you want in the condition that you want them in, all based on artificial intelligence, machine learning and, and proper use by that inspector. I'll give you an example, audio, motor profile. It's not just throwing a microphone you know, somewhere near not taking your phone and waving it over the engine and revving it up. Audio motor profile will give you an actual digital representation of what that engine is doing. And Randy flip that up that screen. No, I look at this all the time and, and I show this all the time and people go, Doug, what, what are you talking about?

Visual representation of metadata that shows an engine knock

Hit, can you hit that next one? Is it on there now? Does it show not no. Let's see if I can do it. There we go. Okay. This is digital visual representation, metadata. I mean, the words I use today, I can't believe I'm using these words. Metadata. What does that have? Well, this is a visual representation of metadata that shows an engine knock. And Doug, what does that mean? Well, what that means is after millions and millions of recordings of engines, machine learning takes that and says, okay, I know it's a four cylinder, 2.3 liter overhead valve. It knows all the data it's listened to so many times that it can tell you that that vehicle has an engine. So you like, well, that's that? That's easy. I can tell you it has an engine knock. I can take my 27 inch three quarter inch extension and I can push it on the engine block and put it to my ear.

Custom made digital microphones can even explain what’s happening in the engine

And I can tell that's got an engine knock. Okay. I'll give you that. But can you tell that it's an engine knock before it actually, before you can hear it machine learning can, they can hear it before the human ear can hear it. That's why this isn't just a recording. You, you hear each knock. You can hear engine accessory, noise, things that you can't hear. These particular custom made digital microphones can hear. And then because of the machine learning and artificial intelligence can tell you exactly what's happening with that engine. Hey, let's see. Can I go to the next one? Can I control that there? Can you see that one, Randy? Yep. Moved it up. So take a look at this, for instance, again, machine learning, and artificial intelligence at work right here. So I'll ask the question, Randy, does that look like to you?

Undercarriage Vehicle image photography takes thousands of photos so you can better assess the condition

What? That can't be a center post hoist, right? Cause you wouldn't be able to get you wouldn't be able to see it because it'd be a center post. Is that a, a roll on four poster electric where you roll it up, where you drive the car on and roll it up. That's kind of what it looks like. But I gotta tell you it's, it's none of the above. That's actually a small tool. That's that you drive over and it takes thousands of photos, digital high res photos, artificial intelligence, stitches them together. And now I can see the bottom of the car without having to crawl under the car. These are the kinds of things that you see that are happening. Not tomorrow, not down the, these are happening today to help dealers make great decisions and finding out what condition that vehicle is in.

There is no limit anymore to selling or buying a car

And they could be thousands of miles away. There's no limit anymore. It used to be, you know what, Doug, I, I don't wanna, I, I don't wanna look at a car that's more than a hundred miles away. Think about this for a second. If you get a consumer in front of you they just happened to be on vacation and they found out that that car they've been looking for for months, you've gotten on your front line, they show up and they go, I want that car. Well, that's great. Mr. Consumer, let's make a deal. Where's your trade? It's 2000 miles away. What? Oh, well, that's, that's, that's too bad. Not anymore. That doesn't matter. 2000 miles away vehicle gets inspected. You can see what that inspection is. You can launch that vehicle off the wholesale auction. You can sell it, make wholesale profit.

No limits to logistics any longer, you can still make a profit 

You know, it's a core vehicle for you. It's gonna make so much profit that you can pay the $1,500 to get it shipped. You bring it in. There is no limit. There's no limit to logistics anymore to help you that will keep you from making profit on a purchase or a trade wholesale. So a lot of stuff happened and I know we're, we're running short on time a little bit. I want to give some time for questions and answers, Randy, any, anything else that you want to talk about and wrapping this up other than the fact that everything has changed, you have to keep an open mind. You have to try things that you didn't think you were gonna have to try before, and you have to trust digital things that you didn't trust before. That's where I'm leaving everybody at.

There is opportunity to have a steady stream of car inventory 

No, I, I, I literally just want everybody to just dig in right now. There's an unbelievable opportunity. And if you looked at, if you really knew what was going on across the marketplace, and you got to be with me on any given day, and I walk into these dealerships, some of them that are buying amazing amounts of cars from the consumer have maximized their inventories, have a steady supply of inventory. Their sales are off the charts. All I'm wanting for you guys. If you're already doing that now, then I know there's even more opportunity for you. So really these things that we covered you'll have access to be able to look at the data. I can't tell you how much I would tell you to dig in on unique ways of being able to buy cars, truly make yourself inventory independent. If you wanna have any questions on anything you had, feel free.

Q&A

Both my email address and Doug’s email address is right there. I'll be more than happy to share, spend as much time as I possibly can with you to help you get these things up and live inside your store. If you want just a personalized presentation over anything that I've covered, it doesn't cost you anything. But one thing I tell every dealer, if I take you through a presentation on multiple products, one thing's gonna happen to you. Even if you don't do business with me, you're gonna go back and change something you're currently doing right now, because that's how big of an impact we can make off of what we're gonna talk about. So I open it up for questions for you. There. We'd love to be able to answer anything that's hanging out and make sure that we get you guys off back on with your day.

Hey Dan, we got any questions.

Well, you guys have such a thorough job that there are only a few questions. Luckily we only don't have that much time, so we'll jump right in. 

Question 1: One of the first ones is what are your thoughts on artificial intelligence when it comes to condition reports? Is there a balance between AI helping and our used car managers still being able to evaluate the inventory before determining the path to purchase inventory?

Answer 1: It's like like I said, I'll grab this one, right. You know, it's not just technology alone. Can't get it done. It's gonna have to be it will. I had a question the other day, as a matter of fact, when I was presenting, Hey, well, Doug will use our used car managers, a thing in the past. I would say used car managers that don't understand, get on board and use the technology that's currently available today. And what's coming down the pike. If they, yes, they would be, they would be a thing in the past. But those that embrace that technology and use that technology to do everything. We talk about, sell more cars faster for high gross profit. That those are the ones that are gonna benefit by the use of this technology. The technology alone cannot do it.

There won't be any time that I, at least in my lifetime, that I see a used car manager  go extinct. It's gonna be the used car managers that don't jump in on this. Don't understand how to use it and take advantage of it to make their lives even a little bit easier than it is today. Cuz I'm telling you, I did it for years. Used car managers, a tough job running a store is a tough job, running an independent store at Tuft use technology today that they have today to make that easier. So yeah, long, long answer is

I would, I would tell you, I would tell you as well. I can't tell you how many things I've missed and I've been, I've been buying an ARA cars and you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of vehicles. How many times I've made a mistake? I can tell you that this is a serious, serious problem. So the technology actually helps me from making a mistake. So things that our technology has caught actually points out to a buyer that we probably would've missed, even if we were physically there looking at the car. So technically technology can certainly help.

Question 2: All right. So here's one about kind of that struggle between having someone buying directly from a website versus coming into the dealership. There's hybrid approach that you've work where kind of made these two world in a little bit,

Answer 2: You know, truly today. I know a, I know a dealership can't have a MO you know, can't afford a lot of times to have a mobile unit. We can actually be that mobile unit for them. So coming to that customer, coming to their work, coming to their office, giving that customer, the information giving 'em enough information, giving 'em a dollar amount that is reasonable and fair for that vehicle versus low balling it like a lot of these companies do is gonna give me a shot at that consumer. But again, a lot of times if I make it more convenient for that consumer today it's gonna give me a best, much better opportunity to go get that car. So if I came to you, Hey Doug, you know what, don't worry about it. I'm gonna send somebody out to your house to be able to take a look at the car. You don't have to go anywhere. You can leave it right there in your driveway. Matter of fact, we even have a, you know, a protocol cleanliness protocol that you don't even have to worry about, you know, somebody coming in and putting some germs in your car. So we'll, we'll handle it. It's touchless for you. We'll handle that whole process. And what I can guarantee is when we come out, Doug, before we leave, you're gonna have a rock solid number on your vehicle. Does that sound fair? Absolutely. So,

Yeah, I think, and I was just looking, I can't find it. I had it written somewhere. I was reading the other day, you know, guys look, consumers tell us that they still want to come to the dealership, but they don't want to come to the dealership because they got a low ball. They don't want to come to the dealership and, and have anything change. So I, I think, I think there is that blended hybrid approach, but that's all based on truth and transparency. That really is that the consumer has to know that when they get there, nothing's gonna change, the data shows us that the consumer still wants to come to the dealership. They still want to have they still wanna know that somebody's gonna be there when they have an issue with a car. So I think that what you present online and, and how you communicate with that consumer online, that's, what's gonna make them want to come down to that dealership. So I think there's a lot of folks we've seen that have a really good hybrid approach. Get it started online, go out and praise their trade, put a great number on that trade, a solid number. That's not gonna be negotiated and that'll get 'em back down to that dealership to sign the paperwork. I truly believe that

Question 3: Doug, someone asked if during a live auction, other dealers are bidding. Do they get the car?

Answer 3: Yeah, no, that's a great question. That depends. They can get the car, these dealers that bid on these, these live appraisals. This is something that has been going on for almost five years now. And this is really kind of the basis of what we started with. So it was it, it, everybody knows that that's a live appraisal. Typically they'll put in a, a, a proxy number, Hey, that's the number I'll pay for that car. And then the dealer that's holding that live appraisal event, they get to make that decision. So do I keep it for this dollar amount? Do I give this to the consumer? What do I do with that car? Or they could just sell it to that dealer and we'll take that vehicle. Cause those are, those are rock solid numbers. That's a true auction mid, and the dealer that bid on that will take it as well. So, I wanna say it's definitely not a high percentage rate. It's not a high sell through rate, but the dealers that are bidding on those, they understand what that is. And they're happy to get the car, but they're also happy to bid as well.

Conclusion 

Ah, so it looks like we are about out of time and it looks like we are out of question. So that's perfect. So that brings us to the end of this webinar thanks to you, our audience for today for the questions. If you ask a question that we didn't get to, or you think of one later that you wanna ask Doug or Randy, you've got your emails there and feel free to reach out to them. If you learn something from this session, please tell your peers about it. The recording will be available in about an hour. You'll find it at auto news.com/webinars. When this webinar ends, the survey will pop up on your screen. Your feedback helps us create future webinars that are even more beneficial to you. Thanks again to Randy, Doug, and ACV for bringing us this presentation and to you for joining us on behalf of everyone in automotive news, have a great rest of your day.