January 24th 2009 marks the opening of the NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) show. This year the show will be held at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. There are an estimated 520 booths that will be at the show this year. This is down a bit from last year which is understandable because of the state that the industry found itself at year end.
The theme of the show this year is ‘Voice of the Dealer® … Committed to Community.’ This should be an excellent convention full of insight and opportunity for all that attend.
The Auto Dealer Improvements team will be onsite at the show and would love to meet with all who would like to spend some time and get to know us. We will be sharing the success of our product MyObsoleteParts.com and showing the dealers how they can discover and unlock new streams of revenue to propel them into the future.
To set up a meeting click on the link below and fill out the contact form. We will then get a hold of you and set up a time. We look forward to seeing you there.
History has shown us that automotive dealers are slow to bring on and adapt to new technology. Currently there are dealerships in the United States that do not use a DMS (Dealer Management System) provider. Yes, you heard me correct, these dealers hand write everything. However this is not the norm, most dealers run a dms system to keep their business running smooth. I am not here to touch on this so much as I want to talk about other aspects of technology that could really help the dealers in today’s market increase their profit margins.
Dealer Management Systems have been around the industry for almost 40 years now, and this has led to them being used in almost every dealership. The internet on the other hand has only been in the mainstream for about 10-15 years. Find me a dealer that has a web-site and you are going to find thousands. Find me a dealer that uses the internet effectively and you will get probably less than 50. I am not saying that dealers do not have helpful sites full of content for potential buyers to sink their teeth into. I am saying that most of these websites cater to the selling of vehicles and leave little to the real money maker for the dealer, the parts and service departments.
Dealers have spent all kinds of money developing great websites. Most are created by a hand full of companies that specialize in dealer websites and do a terrific job. The next time you click on a dealer’s website find the link to the parts department. 99 percent of the parts sites are a form for the customer to fill out a request and then a dealer representative will contact them. This is a major turn off to an end consumer. In a time when they can get everything here and now, they want everything here and now.
According to a study only 2% of parts inventories are exposed on the internet. This is not just OEM parts, but all the aftermarket parts as well. This number is a fraction of a percent when talking about OEM parts. Up until now, there have been limited solutions that were cost effective and easy to use. That time is now past as there are companies that provide services to people wanting to list inventories.
Auto Dealer Improvements has launched the first strike to get dealership parts inventories listed on the internet. Myobsoleteparts.com is an excellent and inexpensive tool for the dealers wanting to increase revenue and embrace the technology of the internet.
Well it is that time of year again, a slight nip in the air, and the sudden desire to drive across cities, counties, and states to enjoy a feast with people that you would never hang out with unless you were related (or maybe you would)!
Its a wondrous time of food, family, friendship, and depending on your family, football. I know I look forward to all the turkey, dressing and pie, oh yeah….pie.
Before all the fun happens you get the enjoyment of the drive. I was thinking back to thanksgiving road trips of the past, you know the ones I am talking about. You would load up in the family station wagon and hit the road.
Now if your station wagon was like ours it had the rear facing flip up seat in the very back. This seat was the perfect place for us kids to look at people out of the back window. We would move our arm up and down to get the semi trucks to honk the horn. We would make faces so that other drivers would laugh (or get mad and show us the ‘bird’)! Most importantly this is the seat that would get us car sick. It seems the only benefit to the car sickness was the empty stomach enabling us to cram in more thanksgiving goodies. Of course as a parent you can’t pull that car over fast enough because the puke smell is just too much. However to us kids you were just getting to our aid as fast as possible as any good parent would! The one perk for the parents of the day was that this rear seat was almost always vinyl. This made clean-up a snap! I have no doubt that an engineer designing this had this though…’Let’s put is a rear flip up seat in the back of the station wagon, of course make it vinyl because kids are going to puke.”
I hope you have enjoyed this look back on the great thanksgiving road trips of the past.
They say a year in the Internet business is like a dog year.. equivalent to seven years in a regular person’s life. In other words, it’s evolving fast and faster. Vinton Cerf
History has shown us that the automotive industry is usually last to the table for new technology in the dealerships, especially in the areas of parts and service. This coupled with the speed of internet evolution has left us in an area where we are playing catch up. Here are some things that will help you get started if you are looking to begin selling on the internet.
Hosting
There are many options available out there for both getting domains and hosting a web site. The most common and cost effective method is to find a service that will allow you to purchase your domain (if you do not already have one) and host your website.
These hosting sites usually have 2 main options:
1. Get a dedicated server. (More Expensive)
2. Get a virtual server. (Less Expensive)
The dedicated server is nice but tends to get a little pricey depending on the size of server and the specs that you need. If you are not sure what you need most of the hosting companies have a sales staff that will assist you in determining them.
The virtual server is quickly becoming the new server of choice for many companies. Basically it is a shared server that is portioned into multiple virtual servers. It is more cost effective and you as the web site owner are not going to notice the difference.
One of the Internet’s strengths is its ability to help consumers find the right needle in a digital haystack of data.
Jared Sandberg
Tomorrow we will start to talk about content and what a consumer is looking for when they come to you site.
If you would like to contribute content please email us.
Today is a day where tough times have made large companies crumble to nothing and the financial instability has caused us to stop and think. Nowhere is this more prevalent than the U.S. automotive industry. With each passing day we find out who is still around and who is gone. Will Chrysler be dissolved into GM? Will GM even survive? These are questions that everyone would like to know but all are uncertain. From the Manufacture to the dealer we have seen disaster from layoff offs to major dealer groups shutting the doors. So what hope is there for us in the automotive industry? What can you do to insure that you will not go the way of so many others? Perhaps there is something we can do. Perhaps you are already doing something that is working. Over the next few weeks I will be digging into the industry and finding tactics and solutions that work. Since I am geared toward the fixed operations side of things this will be my primary focus.
“Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers (six if one went to Harvard).” Edgar R. Fiedler
Today I want to begin to make you think about 500 pound gorilla in the room, and how that gorilla can benefit you and your ability to make money. The Gorilla is something that is most commonly referred to as the Internet.
I recently attended the SEMA show in Las Vegas where I had the opportunity to attend some very eye opening trainings that eBay Motors put together. There were some interesting facts brought up about the automotive industry and the internet. Here are some of the ones that stuck out to me:
Only 2% to 4% of parts inventories are listed on the internet
Auto parts sales on the web are growing at an average of 22% per year
3 of 4 people would prefer to buy online
78% of consumers start at an internet search engine.
Now all of that is fantastic and the money that can be made is huge, but it must be done right. You can pay all kinds of money and build the best looking easiest to use and most innovative site on the internet and get nothing. Think of it as building a Walmart in the middle of nowhere, sure a few people may happen by but you are not going to see any real results.
Tomorrow we will dig a little deeper and start working on some of the questions that you may have if you are going to get involved in the World Wide Web.
If you have an idea that you would like us to talk about please shoot us an email!
SEMA is big, and not just big but huge, enormous, gigantic. Our team still has an entire floor of the south convention center to get to but will have to wait until the morning.
eBay Motors needs some kudos for sponsoring some excellent website and marketing related seminars. The Auto Dealer Improvements team strongly recommends attending these seminars. All of them will be available to SEMA members on line at sema.org. The course today was on web 2.0 and focused a lot on the new methods that can be used to increase your exposure. Blogs, forums, and social media sources such as Linkedin and Facebook are excellent ways to spread the word about your business.
Another perk was the Nissan booth where they displayed an awesome classic style ‘Highboy’ sporting a ‘Z’ engine.
Tomorrow is the conclusion of the show and we are excited to see what it has in store for us. Then it is time to head back to HQ and get cracking.
The Auto Dealer Improvements team will be onsite at the show and would love to meet with all who would like to spend some time and get to know us. We will be sharing the success of our product MyObsoleteParts.com and showing the dealers how they can discover and unlock new streams of revenue to propel them into the future. 
