For a family-owned dealership group, growth is rarely just about adding stores. It’s about knowing what works, building the right team and leaving a legacy. Vaden Automotive in Savannah, Georgia, is doing all three.
On today’s episode of Inside Automotive, Jane Vaden Thacher, President of Vaden Automotive, and her son Jack Thacher, the group’s Director of F&I, join us to discuss the expansion, digital retailing, affordability pressures and the family legacy they are working together to grow.
The Vaden Automotive story
The Vaden Automotive story goes back more than 55 years. Dan Vaden opened his first Chevrolet dealership on what was then a rural road just outside of Savannah in 1968. The store grew to become the largest dealership in southeast coastal Georgia. What he started then has grown into a thriving family business.
His daughter Jane worked her way up through the business, from the service department to president, and today leads a group of 14 dealerships and roughly 880 employees across coastal Georgia and South Carolina.
Vaden Automotive’s most recent additions include a Chevrolet store in Hinesville, acquired last November, and a new Hyundai point in Brunswick. The group also operates a Hyundai dealership in Statesboro, next to the Hyundai Metaplant, which is set for a full remodel and expansion. Jane says they aren’t done expanding yet.
"I think there'll be a tipping point. I think that we are built for probably one more round of acquisitions in the near term." - Jane Vaden Thacher
Vaden doesn’t just buy stores and add them to their portfolio, Jane says, they “Vadenize” them. That’s their term for their onboarding process that starts before the deal is even closed.
“We start on day one, or actually we start before day one, and we call it Vadenizing people, and we really bring them into the fold of how we do things,” Jane said.
The group prioritizes promoting staff from within and gives every employee at an acquired store the opportunity to keep their job from day one. At Vaden, Jane says employee retention and internal development are core business functions, not afterthoughts.
Digital sales and the next generation of car buying
The group’s Director of F&I is Jane’s son, Jack. Now in his 20s, Jack brings a future-forward approach to the business. His generation has never known a world without online shopping. Jack says that shapes how he thinks about the car business and what dealers need to do to stay competitive in the digital age. Jack says it’s not about replacing dealerships. It’s about meeting customers earlier in the process and on their terms.
"A lot of customers are coming in and they want to work their deal out prior to arriving to the dealership." - Jack Thacher
When it comes to fixed-price selling, the model used by Carvana, Tesla, and CarMax, Jack sees more transparency ahead but still believes negotiation benefits buyers.
“I do think there are benefits to being flexible, making a decision based off the age of a vehicle or trying to hit a number. The consumer benefits from that ability,” he said. “I still believe there will be a component of negotiation long term.”
Navigating affordability challenges
Affordability pressures are hitting consumers, automakers and retailers from multiple directions. Higher vehicle prices and elevated interest rates have tightened budgets across the board. Jane says Vaden’s response has been to adapt rather than retreat.
“March was an all-time record month for our company. Yes, there are headwinds, but again, there’s plenty of opportunity if you’re smart about how you do business and if you stick to what made you successful in the first place, while being able to adapt to changing conditions outside our control,” Jane said.
Jack adds that tighter margins are making F&I more important than ever. He says if they don’t make the margin on the front side of a sale, F&I gives them the opportunity to make it up on the back end.
He adds that the value of F&I goes beyond gross. When customers are protected by a service contract, they are more likely to return to the dealership for repairs, and more likely to buy their next vehicle there as well.
Battling burnout with flexibility
Burnout and turnover have long been fixtures of automotive retail. Jack says the industry’s traditional schedule is increasingly at odds with what younger workers expect, and that dealers who ignore it will keep losing staff.
“We see significant turnover in this industry. And you can attribute some of that to burnout. And I think we can manage some of that burnout just by providing additional flexibility,” he said.
Vaden offers one Saturday off per month, giving employees a three-day weekend on a rotating basis. Jack says it’s a start, not a solution, and that the entire industry will need to keep working on the issue.
Jane says things used to be much less forgiving for working families.
“Even today, since I started, the schedule is much more forgiving than it was. And by the way, I had a baby and didn’t get a whole week off,” she said.
A family affair
Jane built Vaden Automotive with her father. Now her son works with her, but it wasn’t always that way. Jack left the business for several years, building a career at a brokerage firm in Colorado. He says he didn’t plan on returning to the family business until his mother convinced him to attend a Vaden leadership retreat. That experience changed his mind and he was ready to quit his brokerage job.
“By the end of it I was so pumped up I was like, what am I doing? I put in my notice that Monday and was back within a couple of weeks,” Jack said.
When asked whether he saw his children in the family business one day, Jack didn’t hesitate. He said he absolutely does, and that being part of the business is about maintaining what his grandfather built.
“Part of the intention behind being here is trying to maintain that legacy and provide them the same opportunity that I was provided, and my mother was provided, and that my grandfather created,” he said.
With her son at her side, Jane says she’s confident about the future of Vaden Automotive, whether she’s there or not.
“I am confident that it’s in good hands and that it will be led in a way that not only I would be proud of, but that my grandfather would be proud of as well,” she said.
