October 25, 2021

How to Buy, Sell & Trade Used Vehicles in a Car Crunch Crisis

Written by: CarOffer

CarOffer was founded as a dealer-driven solutions company. We empower dealerships to control their inventory operations by giving them access to vehicles everywhere, using limit-order dealer-to-dealer purchasing power, to enable better buying, selling, and trading strategies.

Our services enable you to think about your broader business model in the process of finding or offloading inventory, which helps you chart a clear path forward toward long-term success. Let’s look at a few key differentiators of the CarOffer platform and highlight how your dealership can benefit from our advanced solutions and professional support.

Streamline the Way You Source Inventory

Used car dealerships are swimming upstream to acquire quality used car inventory quickly and cost-efficiently. Three major challenges dealers face are:

Knowing when to acquire certain vehicles and in what quantity
Having insufficient data surrounding dealership core inventory performance
Responding strategically to ever-changing market demands that alter inventory needs

Together, these three factors are inhibiting used car dealerships from staying on top of consumer demands and assembling the proper inventory on their lot. Manually bidding on vehicles one at a time simply doesn’t cut it in today’s day and age. You need to act fast in order to keep your inventory stocked with the right vehicles. An automotive trade platform can help you do just that.

CarOffer's solutions were built to ensure dealers could acquire what they need, when they need it. We believe sourcing inventory should be data-driven as opposed to emotionally driven, which is why we built the Buying Matrix™ to allow dealers to input their specific buying preferences and let the platform handle the rest. Positioning your dealership for long-term success starts with embracing innovative tools that bring back time and save you money in the long run.

Have an Exit Strategy on All Your Vehicles

Historically, the value of used vehicles depreciates somewhat rapidly, but we're now seeing used car prices actually increase over time. Today, the average price paid for a used car has jumped from $20,900 to $25,400, an increase of over 21% in just one year. Although the demand for used cars is at an all-time high, it doesn't mean you'll be able to completely avoid stale inventory.

In the past, vehicles that have stayed on your lot for more than 30 days have seen their value depreciate. But with the market being what it is, you might find that selling older inventory isn't quite as difficult as it used to be. Even so, you still don't want to have a ton of aged inventory on your end.

To avoid stale inventory eating away at your bottom line, it’s important to have an exit strategy in place for every vehicle you acquire. It just so happens that CarOffer provides your dealership with complete peace of mind for all inventory sourced through the platform.

When you acquire used cars through the Buying Matrix™, your purchases can be insured for 45 days through OfferGuard™. The process is simple; if you don’t retail the car in 6 weeks, CarOffer will buy it back. This helps your dealership avoid wholesale losses and aging issues, and gives you an easy way to get stale inventory off your hands.

Empower Your Customers to Get Instant Offers

More and more drivers prefer to get an offer on their vehicle from the comfort of their own couch as opposed to heading into a dealership. So if your dealership aims to evolve alongside the expectations of today’s consumers, then implementing an efficient way for drivers to get an instant offer on their vehicle is a must.

Through CarOffer, you can empower customers to sell their vehicles without ever having to leave their homes. ConsumerLane™ enables you to give customers a cash offer for their used vehicle within seconds. Your dealership is free to either keep vehicles purchased from consumers on your lot or wholesale them directly on the CarOffer trade platform. And with the ability to integrate ConsumerLane™ directly on your website, dealers can deliver co-branded invitations and offers that drive traffic and generate buzz around your business.

“We piloted ConsumerLane and did a side-by-side comparison with other online appraisal applications. CarOffer’s product quickly distanced itself from the competition. We’ve been able to buy many more cars from consumers with ConsumerLane, and those that don’t fit our retail criteria, we simply sell on the CarOffer platform with the click of a button. It’s a very powerful and much needed product and it’s a win-win for our dealerships and our customers.”

- Jeff Dyke, President, Sonic Automotive

Give CarOffer a Test Drive

Discover a better way to buy, sell, and trade used vehicles with CarOffer. Designed with the dealer in mind, our solutions enable you to manage your used car inventory with complete confidence and control. Working together, we can help you regain valuable time and resources for your dealership, and help position your business well for whatever the future may bring.