How to make the first half of the month less challenging for your car dealership

Welcome to this week’s episode of Used Cars Weekly, the original CBT News show dedicated to bringing car dealers best practices and tips for the used car department, in-depth dealer interviews, hands-on dealership strategies, as well as vendor analysis. Today, host Jasen Rice, founder of Lotpop, discusses why the first half of the month is typically challenging for car dealers and why it doesn’t have to be that way.

Typically a lot of dealerships will sell one and a half to two times more cars in the second half of the month than the first, which is normal for the industry. When it comes to stocking used cars, Rice thinks that stocking patterns can cause challenges at the beginning of the month.

When it comes to stocking habits, become more of a reactionary. A lot of inventory tools won’t tell you to buy something until you sell something. If you start to have a strong second half of the month, Rice says you’re going to start dwindling down your inventory levels.

The first half of the month, Rice says you could be running 20% or 30% of light inventory. He says you should treat the 5th or 8th of the month no differently than the 29th or 30th. The dealers that are consistent with that and their sales habits and follow-up processes are doing an effective job.

Rice says you should be ramping up stocking around the 10th to the 20th of the month, so you can replenish the cars that are leaving the second half of the month, as the month ends. He also says to be aware of the trade-ins. Going into January, get into the habit of making sure you’re prepared for the whole month when it comes to stocking levels.

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