Over the last three years, as a result of the recession, our industry has experienced some growing pains. Just as demand began to rise, the industry’s economic woes were met with the wrath of Mother Nature when the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, taking a toll on the production plants that feed the inventories of dealerships across the country. Despite the difficulties, most dealers have weathered the storm, cut costs and increased efficiencies to stay afloat. The best dealers have remained strong and are now benefiting from increased demand, revenue and profits with leaner organizations that are enjoying the newfound demand in the recovering market.

Also in this issue…
Matt Buchanan – Negotiate Like a Mega Dealer

Dale Pollak – How to Avoid “Gotcha!” Moments in Used Vehicle Acquisitions

Kendall Billman – What is Your Website Hiding, Part 3

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Read below:

Buying a car is much easier than it was ten years ago. Information that was once held sacrosanct by the dealer is now readily available on the web and delivered on mobile devices. Online dealers are employing the latest technology and services to provide consumers with even more information and providing it to them in formats that they understand. Transparency is now a buzzword among car dealers.

So finding the car you want with the options you choose and knowing what constitutes a fair deal is relatively easy to do. Finding out what the dealer paid for a new car and what rebates and specials apply to that car is elementary. But try to find out what your payment will be and you step back into the Stone Age or more often back into “the box” at the dealership.

Statistics show that in 90% of car deals, financing is involved and the lowest possible payment is the customer’s goal. So, at the end of the day, after the consumer has sorted through all of the information available to them in making an informed buying decision, it still comes down to a monthly payment. And, with many luxury models, over 40% of new car sales are actually leases. Auto marketers know that advertising low payments stimulates interest and moves cars.

While most new car dealers advertise payments on their websites, they are typically static ads, with small print, relating to a specific vehicle, with a certain MSRP. This often leads to confusion for both the customer and dealership staff when the customer wants to know the details and how the “special” relates to an actual vehicle in the dealer’s inventory. The problem is that calculating accurate lease and loan payments, and creating the legal disclosures required by Federal Law, is difficult and time consuming

Seven years ago a couple of Texans, Jerry Thompson and Bill Krautter, decided to tackle this problem. They developed a unique technology, and web services, that accurately calculate lease and loan payments on a dealer’s inventory according to lender guidelines. It then displays the lowest payment, and all possible payments, for multiple lenders with full legal disclosures. This information can then be used on dealer inventory listings, vehicle searches, “specials,” vehicle brochure pages, display ads, ads pushed to auto portals, etc.

In order to bring this much needed technology to the broad market of the auto industry, the creators have partnered with industry veterans to form OfferLogix, LLC. In the words of co-founder, Jerry Thompson their mission is simple. “We seek to eliminate the confusion, the inaccuracy, and the disconnect that exists between the vehicle, the customer, and the monthly payment.“ As this technology penetrates the market, consumers will finally have the information they need to budget and compare while making a buying decision.

In addition to payments for online vehicle listings, dealers are integrating the technology into their mobile apps. Some leading dealers already allow you to use your smart phone to scan a vehicles unique serial number or a bar code on the window sticker and in addition to seeing the vehicle information you will be able to see the price and payments.

We have come a long way in the last ten years and if the partners in OfferLogix have their way; this final frontier of transparency regarding the monthly payment will have been crossed forever.

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