3 Takeaways to retail a larger share of vehicles in less than 30 days, and improving overall profitability and ROI in used vehicles.

1. Minimize retail-ready delays. It’s still not uncommon for dealers to lose three, five, seven or even more days of a vehicle’s retail lifecycle waiting for reconditioning or detailing work to make it front-line ready. One could argue that a three-day delay doesn’t matter much if you are able to retail the vehicle in a week. But how often does that happen?

2. Market- and inventory age-attuned pricing. Top-performing retailers understand that pricing used vehicles amounts to a near-constant balancing act. You need to know where the vehicle stands in the market, in the context of competing cars and buyer demand, to determine the best initial retail asking price. You also need to account for how these variables change as your vehicle ages in your inventory, and adjust your price accordingly. Dealers who are less attentive to these market and pricing dynamics typically have more trouble retailing 55 percent of their inventory in less than 30 days.

3. Move the goal posts gradually. In the analysis of the dealer’s inventory, we found that he typically retailed about 30 percent of his 100-car inventory in less than 30 days. A team should work to reach the 55 percent benchmark over the course of three months—with a target of 35 percent for the first month, 40 percent for the second, and so on. Dealer understand that the gradual pace of improvement would afford sufficient time for the team to apply a greater degree of market awareness, attentiveness and urgency from the moment they appraise a vehicle and own it, to the moment it sells.

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