Video Blog/Jeff Sacks: How Decreasing ‘Cycle Time’ on Used Cars Can Add to the Bottom Line

Today’s used car business moves at warp-speed. The pre-Internet patterns of reconditioning and marketing have been turned upside-down in recent years. This places a premium on getting your used vehicles (whether they be trades or purchases), onto the Internet as quickly as possible. If you do not get the vehicle effectively listed on the Internet, you almost cannot expect to sell it. So how can we do this more efficiently?

Jeff suggests that this is not just about getting the vehicle reconditioned faster; although this does help. It is more about rethinking the entire process with any eye toward making sure you get that vehicle onto the Internet faster.

Try this. Why not detail and photograph the vehicle prior to taking the vehicle to the shop for the reconditioning work. (The exception would be obviously needed body repairs.) If you can take care of the appearance issues and make the vehicle pretty for pictures, then you can actually get the vehicle on the Internet before you complete the recon and get it on the lot. Jeff suggests that the faster you get this vehicle on the Internet, the faster it will sell, and the faster you will be making room for the next one.

Reducing your cycle time in this fashion will allow you to move more used vehicles simply because you are selling them faster.

Jeff also suggests that you may want to look at the pay plans for key players in this process and create incentives for reducing the time it takes to get the vehicle ready for Internet listing. He also suggests that the opposite; creating a pay plan disincentive for taking too long.